Group cohesion in foraging meerkats: follow the moving 'vocal hot spot'.

ABSTRACT: Group coordination, when 'on the move' or when visibility is low, is a challenge faced by many social living animals. While some animals manage to maintain cohesion solely through visual contact, the mechanism of group cohesion through other modes of communication, a necessity when visual contact is reduced, is not yet understood. Meerkats (Suricata suricatta), a small, social carnivore, forage as a cohesive group while moving continuously. While foraging, they frequently emit 'close calls', soft close-range contact calls. Variations in their call rates based on their local environment, coupled with individual movement, produce a dynamic acoustic landscape with a moving 'vocal hotspot' of the highest calling activity. We investigated whether meerkats follow such a vocal hotspot by p

SUBMITTER: Gall GEC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5414265 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature