ArticlesEffect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership behaviour in free-ranging dogs
Section snippets
Study Area
The research was carried out in a suburban environment situated in the southwestern outskirts of Rome, Italy. The study area was about 300 ha and was delimited to the north, west and south by roads with heavy traffic and to the east by cultivated areas. The southwest sector was urbanized although not densely populated. The northeast sector was mainly occupied by a nature reserve called ‘Tenuta dei Massimi’. The habitat in the reserve consisted mainly of open grasslands with some interspersed
Distribution of Leadership within Packs
In the Corridoio pack (N = 133 collective movements) leadership was clearly not restricted to a single dog. As shown in Fig. 1a, every adult and subadult individual could be successful in recruiting at least two followers, whereas juveniles never behaved as leaders. However, individual differences in the frequency of leadership were significantly greater than expected by chance even when we restricted the analysis to adults and subadults (χ152 = 84.94, P < 0.0001). Altogether there were 275 attempts
Discussion
In this study we found that leadership during group departures in free-ranging dogs was not entirely concentrated on a single individual. Every adult and subadult individual within a given pack could successfully initiate a collective movement involving a minimum of three animals, whereas dogs younger than 1 year rarely succeeded in doing so. However, in all packs studied some individuals behaved as habitual leaders and others as habitual followers. In the two packs for which testing was
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Annamaria Andreozzi and Mirella De Paolis for helping with the dog census. Special thanks are due to Ilya Fischhoff and Amandine Ramseyer for providing stimulating discussions and relevant literature. Relevant papers were also provided by Larissa Conradt, Marion L. East and Kay E. Holekamp. We also thank Alessandro Giuliani, Mario Di Traglia and Gabriele Schino for statistical advices, and Luis Nieder for providing support and facilities. Finally, thanks are due to the
References (50)
- et al.
Pattern of individual participation and cheating in conflicts between groups of free-ranging dogs
Animal Behaviour
(2010) - et al.
Consensus decision making in animals
Trends in Ecology & Evolution
(2005) - et al.
Self-organization and collective behaviour in vertebrates
Advances in the Study of Behavior
(2003) - et al.
Social relationships and reproductive state influence leadership roles in movements of plains zebra, Equus burchellii
Animal Behaviour
(2007) Spacing and social organization: urban stray dogs revisited
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
(1987)- et al.
Dominance and affiliation mediate despotism in a social primate
Current Biology
(2008) - et al.
Distributed leadership in semifree-ranging white-faced capuchin monkeys
Animal Behaviour
(2003) - et al.
Agonistic behaviour of free-ranging dogs (Canis familiaris) in relation to season, sex and age
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
(1998) - et al.
Decision-making in group departures of sheep is a continuous process
Animal Behaviour
(2009) The dwarf mongoose: a study of behaviour and social structure in relation to ecology in a small, social carnivore
Advances in the Study of Behavior
(1987)
To follow or not to follow: decision making and leadership during the morning departure in chacma baboons
Animal Behaviour
Social dynamics and the cortisol response to immobilization stress of the African wild dog, Lycaon pictus
Hormones and Behavior
Observational study of behavior: sampling methods
Behaviour
Scent-marking by free-ranging domestic dogs
Biology of Behavior
Comparative social ecology of feral dogs and wolves
Ethology, Ecology and Evolution
Population biology and ecology of feral dogs in central Italy
How monkeys find their way: leadership, coordination, and cognitive maps of African baboons
Social relationships of mountain baboons: leadership and affiliation in a non-female-bonded monkey
American Journal of Primatology
Red Deer, Behavior and Ecology of Two Sexes
Activity synchrony and social cohesion: a fission–fusion model
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Group decision-making in animals
Nature
Democracy in animals: the evolution of shared group decisions
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move
Nature
Cited by (80)
Personalized dominance – a questionnaire-based analysis of the associations among personality traits and social rank of companion dogs
2022, Applied Animal Behaviour ScienceRelationship quality affects social stress buffering in dogs and wolves
2021, Animal BehaviourArtificially elevated oxytocin concentrations in pet dogs are associated with higher proximity-maintenance and gazing towards the owners
2021, Physiology and BehaviorCitation Excerpt :However, oxytocin concentrations were not associated with other behavioural synchrony and shared attention related measures. Behavioural synchrony has been hypothesized to be bidirectionally linked to affiliation and social cohesion in dogs ([14];[92]) and, since oxytocin enhances social and affiliative behaviours of dogs towards their owners [70], we predicted it would increase the behavioural synchrony of dogs with their owners. We found no association between post-administration oxytocin levels and the more stringent measure of behavioural synchrony (i.e. the time spent doing the same activity but also in proximity of the owner), nor with the dogs’ activity synchrony alone, or speed with which they changed activity following their owner's change of state (temporal synchrony component).
Dogs' (Canis lupus familiaris) behavioral adaptations to a human-dominated niche: A review and novel hypothesis
2021, Advances in the Study of Behavior
- 1
S. Cafazzo is at the Dipartimento di Protezione e Valorizzazione Agroalimentare, Università di Bologna, via Fratelli Rosselli 107, 43100, Reggio Emilia, Italy.
- 2
E. Natoli is at Azienda USL Roma D, Area Dipartimentale Sanità Pubblica Veterinaria, Ospedale Veterinario, via della Magliana 856, 00148 Roma, Italy.