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Author Jørgensen, G.H.M.; Borsheim, L.; Mejdell, C.M.; Søndergaard, E.; Bøe, K.E. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Grouping horses according to gender--Effects on aggression, spacing and injuries Type Journal Article
  Year 2009 Publication Applied Animal Behaviour Science Abbreviated Journal Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci.  
  Volume 120 Issue 1-2 Pages 94-99  
  Keywords Horse; Group housing; Gender; Injuries; Social behaviour  
  Abstract Many horse owners tend to group horses according to gender, in an attempt to reduce aggressive interactions and the risk of injuries. The aim of our experiment was to test the effects of such gender separation on injuries, social interactions and individual distance in domestic horses. A total of 66 horses were recruited from 4 different farms in Norway and Denmark and divided into six batches. Within each batch, horses were allotted into one mare group, one gelding group and one mixed gender group, with most groups consisting of three or four animals. After 4-6 weeks of acclimatisation, a trained observer recorded all social interactions using direct, continuous observation 1 h in the morning and 1 h in the afternoon for three consecutive days. Recordings of the nearest neighbour of each horse were performed using instantaneous sampling every 10 min. The horses were inspected for injuries before grouping, day 1 after grouping and after 4-6 weeks. No significant effect of gender composition was found on social interactions (P > 0.05), spacing (P > 0.07) or injuries (P > 0.23). Eighty percent of all aggressive interactions recorded were threats, not involving physical contact. Horses with the smallest space allowance showed the highest mean number of aggressive interactions (28.6 ± 6.1 interactions per 6 h) compared to the mean of all the other batches (8.3 ± 1.0 interactions per 6 h). Very few injuries were found and most were superficial. In conclusion, gender composition does not seem to have any effect on aggression level, spacing or injuries. However, the early social experience of horses, management of feeding and space allowance probably represents more important factors for successful group housing of domestic horses.  
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  ISSN 0168-1591 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5093  
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Author Zharkikh, T.L.; Andersen, L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Behaviour of Bachelor Males of the Przewalski Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) at the Reserve Askania Nova Type Journal Article
  Year 2009 Publication Der Zoologische Garten Abbreviated Journal Zoologische Garten  
  Volume 78 Issue 5-6 Pages 282-299  
  Keywords Equid; Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii); Bachelor group; Social behaviour  
  Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate social relationships between Przewalski horses at a high density in a bachelor group housed in a 3.5-ha enclosure. The group consisted of 16 males aged 5 to 16. Behavioural data were collected during 18 days, total 216 h. Fifteen minute focal animal sampling was used; each horse was observed three times a day for a total of 45 min. The occurrence of 25 behaviours was recorded, and group spacing behaviour was studied using nearest neighbour recordings. The group divided into four subgroups; this supports earlier findings of bachelor groups (n>=10) dividing into two or more subgroups if they included several males aged >5 years. The total frequency of social interactions was 14.6±1.1 h-1. Although the density of the group in this study was higher than in other zoos, the males interacted agonistically only 3.6 h-1. The most frequently observed social behaviour categories were friendly interactions. This study shows possibilities to use some investigative behaviours (marking, flehmen, olfactory investigation, etc.) as indicators of social status of animals in a group.  
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  ISSN 0044-5169 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5098  
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Author Lusseau, D.; Conradt, L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title The emergence of unshared consensus decisions in bottlenose dolphins Type Journal Article
  Year 2009 Publication Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Abbreviated Journal Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.  
  Volume 63 Issue 7 Pages 1067-1077  
  Keywords Behavioral ecology – Decision-making process – Bottlenose dolphin – Group living  
  Abstract Abstract  Unshared consensus decision-making processes, in which one or a small number of individuals make the decision for the rest of a group, are rarely documented. However, this mechanism can be beneficial for all group members when one individual has greater knowledge about the benefits of the decision than other group members. Such decisions are reached during certain activity shifts within the population of bottlenose dolphins residing in Doubtful Sound, New Zealand. Behavioral signals are performed by one individual and seem to precipitate shifts in the behavior of the entire group: males perform side flops and initiate traveling bouts while females perform upside-down lobtails and terminate traveling bouts. However, these signals are not observed at all activity shifts. We find that, while side flops were performed by males that have greater knowledge than other male group members, this was not the case for females performing upside-down lobtails. The reason for this could have been that a generally high knowledge about the optimal timing of travel terminations rendered it less important which individual female made the decision.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5109  
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Author Dyer, J.R.G.; Johansson, A.; Helbing, D.; Couzin, I.D.; Krause, J. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Leadership, consensus decision making and collective behaviour in humans Type Journal Article
  Year 2009 Publication Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Abbreviated Journal Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci.  
  Volume 364 Issue 1518 Pages 781-789  
  Keywords * leadership * consensus decision making * collective behaviour * human group  
  Abstract This paper reviews the literature on leadership in vertebrate groups, including recent work on human groups, before presenting the results of three new experiments looking at leadership and decision making in small and large human groups. In experiment 1, we find that both group size and the presence of uninformed individuals can affect the speed with which small human groups (eight people) decide between two opposing directional preferences and the likelihood of the group splitting. In experiment 2, we show that the spatial positioning of informed individuals within small human groups (10 people) can affect the speed and accuracy of group motion. We find that having a mixture of leaders positioned in the centre and on the edge of a group increases the speed and accuracy with which the group reaches their target. In experiment 3, we use large human crowds (100 and 200 people) to demonstrate that the trends observed from earlier work using small human groups can be applied to larger crowds. We find that only a small minority of informed individuals is needed to guide a large uninformed group. These studies build upon important theoretical and empirical work on leadership and decision making in animal groups.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5122  
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Author Conradt, L.; Krause, J.; Couzin, I. D.; Roper, T. J. url  doi
openurl 
  Title “Leading According to Need” in Self-Organizing Groups Type Journal Article
  Year 2009 Publication The American Naturalist Abbreviated Journal Am Nat  
  Volume 173 Issue 3 Pages 304-312  
  Keywords behavioral synchrony, collective group decisions, democracy and egalitarianism in animals, public goods experiments, sexual segregation, social choice theory  
  Abstract Self‐organizing‐system approaches have shed significant light on the mechanisms underlying synchronized movements by large groups of animals, such as shoals of fish, flocks of birds, or herds of ungulates. However, these approaches rarely consider conflicts of interest between group members, although there is reason to suppose that such conflicts are commonplace. Here, we demonstrate that, where conflicts exist, individual members of self‐organizing groups can, in principle, increase their influence on group movement destination by strategically changing simple behavioral parameters (namely, movement speed, assertiveness, and social attraction range). However, they do so at the expense of an increased risk of group fragmentation and a decrease in movement efficiency. We argue that the resulting trade‐offs faced by each group member render it likely that group movements are led by those members for which reaching a particular destination is most crucial or group cohesion is least important. We term this phenomenon leading according to “need” or “social indifference,” respectively. Both kinds of leading can occur in the absence of knowledge of or communication about the needs of other group members and without the assumption of altruistic cooperation. We discuss our findings in the light of observations on fish and other vertebrates.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5121  
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Author King, A.J.; Douglas, C.M.S.; Huchard, E.; Isaac, N.J.B.; Cowlishaw, G. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Dominance and affiliation mediate despotism in a social primate Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Current Biology : CB Abbreviated Journal Curr Biol  
  Volume 18 Issue 23 Pages 1833-1838  
  Keywords Animals; *Authoritarianism; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cooperative Behavior; *Decision Making; Feeding Behavior; Female; *Group Processes; Male; Papio ursinus/*psychology; *Social Dominance  
  Abstract Group-living animals routinely have to reach a consensus decision and choose between mutually exclusive actions in order to coordinate their activities and benefit from sociality. Theoretical models predict “democratic” rather than “despotic” decisions to be widespread in social vertebrates, because they result in lower “consensus costs”-the costs of an individual foregoing its optimal action to comply with the decision-for the group as a whole. Yet, quantification of consensus costs is entirely lacking, and empirical observations provide strong support for the occurrence of both democratic and despotic decisions in nature. We conducted a foraging experiment on a wild social primate (chacma baboons, Papio ursinus) in order to gain new insights into despotic group decision making. The results show that group foraging decisions were consistently led by the individual who acquired the greatest benefits from those decisions, namely the dominant male. Subordinate group members followed the leader despite considerable consensus costs. Follower behavior was mediated by social ties to the leader, and where these ties were weaker, group fission was more likely to occur. Our findings highlight the importance of leader incentives and social relationships in group decision-making processes and the emergence of despotism.  
  Address Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK. andrew.king@ioz.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 0960-9822 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:19026539 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5124  
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Author Jacobs, A.; Maumy, M.; Petit, O. url  doi
openurl 
  Title The influence of social organisation on leadership in brown lemurs (Eulemur fulvus fulvus) in a controlled environment Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.  
  Volume 79 Issue 2 Pages 111-113  
  Keywords Animals; *Decision Making; Dominance-Subordination; *Exploratory Behavior; Female; Group Structure; *Leadership; Lemur/*psychology; Male; Sex Factors; *Social Environment  
  Abstract Studies on leadership during group movements in several lemur species showed that females were responsible for the travelling choices concerning time and direction. Interestingly, in these species females are dominant over males. We investigated the influence of social organisation upon leadership processes by studying a lemur species in which social organisation is characterized by the absence of female dominance: the brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus fulvus). The study was conducted on a semi-free ranging group of 11 individuals and the analysis performed on 69 group movements showed that all the individuals could initiate a group movement. In 34 cases, the whole group moved. There was no significant difference in the number of start attempts or in the number of group members involved from one initiator to another. Moreover, there was no effect of sex or age of the initiator on the number of individuals following it or on the speed of the joining process. Therefore, the leadership observed is widely distributed to all group members. These results support the hypothesis of an influence of social organisation upon the decision-making processes but still remain to be studied in a more relevant ecological context.  
  Address IPHC-DEPE, Equipe d'ethologie des primates, UMR 7178, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Universite Louis Pasteur and Centre de Primatologie, Strasbourg, France  
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  ISSN 0376-6357 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:18586413 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5127  
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Author Conradt, L.; Roper, T.J. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Group decision-making in animals Type Journal Article
  Year 2003 Publication Nature Abbreviated Journal Nature  
  Volume 421 Issue 6919 Pages 155-158  
  Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; *Decision Making; Democracy; Group Processes; *Models, Biological; Population Density; Social Behavior  
  Abstract Groups of animals often need to make communal decisions, for example about which activities to perform, when to perform them and which direction to travel in; however, little is known about how they do so. Here, we model the fitness consequences of two possible decision-making mechanisms: 'despotism' and 'democracy'. We show that under most conditions, the costs to subordinate group members, and to the group as a whole, are considerably higher for despotic than for democratic decisions. Even when the despot is the most experienced group member, it only pays other members to accept its decision when group size is small and the difference in information is large. Democratic decisions are more beneficial primarily because they tend to produce less extreme decisions, rather than because each individual has an influence on the decision per se. Our model suggests that democracy should be widespread and makes quantitative, testable predictions about group decision-making in non-humans.  
  Address School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK. l.conradt@sussex.ac.uk  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0028-0836 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:12520299 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5136  
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Author Smith, L.A.; Wells, K.L.; Marion, G.; Swain, D.L.; Hutchings, M.R. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Effects of group composition on the grazing behaviour of herbivores Type Journal Article
  Year Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume In Press, Corrected Proof Issue Pages  
  Keywords grazing; group composition; herbivore; individual behaviour; physiological state  
  Abstract Animal behaviour is often a function of the animal's physiological state. Groups of animals will often contain individuals with a range of physiological states and the grazing behaviour of herbivores is affected by their physiological state. This study compared the grazing decisions of animals in groups of single and mixed physiological states. Using a grazing model that simulated individual herbivore behaviour in relation to environmental distributions of forage resource (grass) and parasites (faeces), we tested the hypothesis that an animal's level of parasite exposure via the faecal-oral route is affected by the composition of physiological states in the group. Four physiological states were considered: parasite-naïve, parasitized, lactating and parasite-immune animals. Baseline parasite exposure levels for each state were generated by simulating single-state groups and were compared to simulations of each of the six two-state combinations. In single-state groups parasitized animals had the least and lactating animals had the greatest levels of parasite exposure. When co-grazing with lactating animals, parasitized, immune and naïve animals increased their parasite exposure, relative to single-state groups. When co-grazing with parasitized animals, lactating, immune and naïve animals reduced their parasite exposure, relative to single-state groups. There was no difference in parasite exposure of the immune or naïve animals co-grazing together when compared to the single-state groups. These results highlight the need to recognize the impact of the individual when studying group-living animals.  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5155  
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Author Kurvers, R.H.J.M.; Eijkelenkamp, B.; van Oers, K.; van Lith, B.; van Wieren, S.E.; Ydenberg, R.C.; Prins, H.H.T. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Personality differences explain leadership in barnacle geese Type Journal Article
  Year 2009 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 78 Issue 2 Pages 447-453  
  Keywords barnacle goose; boldness; Branta leucopsis; group behaviour; leadership; personality  
  Abstract Personality in animal behaviour describes the observation that behavioural differences between individuals are consistent over time and context. Studies of group-living animals show that movement order among individuals is also consistent over time and context, suggesting that some individuals lead and others follow. However, the relationship between leadership and personality traits is poorly studied. We measured several personality traits and leadership of individual barnacle geese, Branta leucopsis. We measured body size and scored the dominance of individuals living in a stable group situation before subjecting them to an open-field test, an activity test, a novel-object test, and a leadership test in which the order of the movement of individuals in pairs towards a feeding patch was scored. We found high repeatability for activity and novel-object scores over time. Leadership was strongly correlated with novel-object score but not with dominance rank, activity or exploration in an open field. These results provide evidence that leadership is closely related to some aspects of personality. Interestingly, an individual's arrival at the food patch was affected not only by the novel-object score of the focal individual, but also by the novel-object score of the companion individual, indicating that movement patterns of individuals living in groups are affected by the personality traits of other group members and suggesting that movement patterns of a group may be shaped by the mix of personality types present in the group.  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5172  
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