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VanDierendonck, M. C., de Vries, H., Schilder, M. B. H., Colenbrander, B., & Þorhallsdóttir, A. G. and S., H. (2009). Interventions in social behaviour in a herd of mares and geldings. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 116(1), 67–73.
Abstract: Social dynamics and maintenance of social cohesion were studied by analysing social interventions in two groups of horses consisting of adult mares, their offspring, adult geldings and sub-adults. The animals were observed for a total of 1316 h. All relevant dyadic and triadic social interactions, including initial behaviour, possible intervention and outcome, were recorded. The main question was: do horses use interventions in affiliative interactions to safeguard their social network? Horses were significantly more likely to intervene in allogrooming or play interactions that involved a preferred partner. The stronger the preferred association in allogrooming, the higher the likelihood the intervener took over allogrooming with an initial dyad member. Interveners originating from two newly introduced groups (n = 3 and 5), intervened significantly more often when a member of their own group allogroomed with an unfamiliar horse. In play, no correlation with unfamiliarity was found. Overall, the intervening horses stopped more than half of the initial allogrooming interactions, and a third of all interactions. Therefore, social facilitation cannot sufficiently explain interference behaviour. This study shows that maintaining relationships with preferred partners is important to horses and has implications for equine husbandry and management.
Keywords: Horses; Social relationships; Interventions; Mares; Geldings; Play; Allogrooming; Social network
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Bode, N. W. F., Wood, A. J., & Franks, D. W. (2011). The impact of social networks on animal collective motion. Anim. Behav., 82(1), 29–38.
Abstract: Many group-living animals show social preferences for relatives, familiar conspecifics or individuals of similar attributes such as size, personality or sex. How such preferences could affect the collective motion of animal groups has been rather unexplored. We present a general model of collective animal motion that includes social connections as preferential reactions between individuals. Our conceptual examples illustrate the possible impact of underlying social networks on the collective motion of animals. Our approach shows that the structure of these networks could influence: (1) the cohesion of groups; (2) the spatial position of individuals within groups; and (3) the hierarchical dynamics within such groups. We argue that the position of individuals within a social network and the social network structure of populations could have important fitness implications for individual animals. Counterintuitive results from our conceptual examples show that social structures can result in unexpected group dynamics. This sharpens our understanding of the way in which collective movement can be interpreted as a result of social interactions.
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Schneider, G., & Krueger, K. (2012). Third-party interventions keep social partners from exchanging affiliative interactions with others. Anim. Behav., 83(2), 377–387.
Abstract: Third-party interventions are defined as the interruption of dyadic interactions by third animals through direct physical contact, interposing or threats. Previous studies focused on the analysis of interventions against agonistic encounters. However, there have been no evaluations of interventions against affiliative behaviours, particularly in relation to the intervening animal�s social relationships and its social and spatial position. Horses, Equus caballus, are an interesting model species, as interventions against affiliative interactions occur more frequently than against agonistic interactions. In this study, 64 feral horses displayed 67 interventions in affiliative interactions and eight interventions in agonistic interactions within the observation period. We analysed the interventions in affiliative encounters, and found that it was mainly higher-ranking females that intervened in the affiliative interactions of group mates in the stable horse harems. The intervening animals took an active part in affiliative and agonistic encounters within the group, but did not occupy particular social roles or spatial positions. They intervened in affiliative interactions in which group mates with which they had social bonds interacted with other members of the group. They targeted the nonbonded animal and approached the one with which they were socially bonded. We suggest some species use third-party interventions in affiliative interactions to prevent competition for preferred social interaction partners from escalating into more costly agonistic encounters.
Keywords: Equus caballus; horse; rank; social bond; social network; third-party intervention
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Briard, L., Dorn, C., & Petit, O. (2015). Personality and Affinities Play a Key Role in the Organisation of Collective Movements in a Group of Domestic Horses. Ethology, 121(9), 888–902.
Abstract: Understanding how groups of individuals with different motives come to daily decisions about the exploitation of their environment is a key question in animal behaviour. While interindividual differences are often seen only as a threat to group cohesion, growing evidence shows that they may to some extent facilitate effective collective action. Recent studies suggest that personality differences influence how individuals are attracted to conspecifics and affect their behaviour as an initiator or a follower. However, most of the existing studies are limited to a few taxa, mainly social fish and arthropods. Horses are social herbivores that live in long-lasting groups and show identifiable personality differences between individuals. We studied a group of 38 individuals living in a 30-ha hilly pasture. Over 200 h, we sought to identify how far individual differences such as personality and affinity distribution affect the dynamic of their collective movements. First, we report that individuals distribute their relationships according to similar personality and hierarchical rank. This is the first study that demonstrates a positive assortment between unrelated individuals according to personality in a mammal species. Second, we measured individual propensity to initiate and found that bold individuals initiated more often than shy individuals. However, their success in terms of number of followers and joining duration did not depend on their individual characteristics. Moreover, joining process is influenced by social network, with preferred partners following each other and bolder individuals being located more often at the front of the movement. Our results illustrate the importance of taking into account interindividual behavioural differences in studies of social behaviours.
Keywords: decision-making; equids; hierarchy; leadership; social network
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