Effect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership behaviour in free-ranging dogs

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.02.021

Animal Behaviour

Volume 79, Issue 5, May 2010, Pages 981-991

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.02.021 Get rights and content

Consensus decisions about the nature and timing of group activities allow animals to maintain group cohesiveness, but also entail costs because individuals often differ with respect to their optimal activity budgets. Two mechanisms whereby animals reach a consensus include ‘consistent leadership’, in which a single dominant individual makes the decision, and ‘variable leadership’ in which several group members contribute to the decision outcome. Sharing of consensus decisions is expected to reduce consensus costs to most group members. Both patterns are thought to emerge from the complexity of social relationships of group members. We investigated the distribution of leadership during group departures in two packs of free-ranging dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, and tested how its distribution between individuals was affected by dominance rank-related affiliative and agonistic relationships. Although leadership was not entirely concentrated on a single group member, both packs had a limited number of habitual leaders. In the largest pack, the pattern of leadership changed from ‘variable’ to nearly ‘consistent’ after its size had shrunk. Habitual leaders were usually old and high-ranking individuals. However, high-ranking dogs that received affiliative submissions in greeting ceremonies were more likely to lead than dominant dogs receiving submissions only in agonistic contexts. During resting times, habitual followers associated more closely with habitual leaders than with other followers. These results suggest that in social species collective movements may arise from the effort of subordinates to maintain close proximity with specific valuable social partners.

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

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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.

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ArticlesEffect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership behaviour in free-ranging dogs

Section snippets

Study Area

Distribution of Leadership within Packs

Discussion

Acknowledgments

Animal Behaviour

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Advances in the Study of Behavior

Animal Behaviour

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

Current Biology

Animal Behaviour

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

Animal Behaviour

Advances in the Study of Behavior

Animal Behaviour

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

Articles
Effect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership behaviour in free-ranging dogs