How groups in a group move: Understanding coordination of fission fusion dynamics of chimpanzees in a Savannah-Woodland mosaic

该项目旨在了解生活在稀树草原-林地的黑猩猩在裂变融合社会中个体是如何相互协调地移动的。这需要理解多个个体如何在一定距离内同步移动。在裂变融合社会中，个体形成的子群体的组成往往取决于季节和活动，在黑猩猩的背景下，子群体被称为党派。当进入高捕食风险或高食物丰富的空间时，这些群体经常融合在一起，不同性别和年龄阶层的分组模式被很好地记录下来。在这些融合事件中，从属和对立的关系可能会重新建立，因此它们可能是紧张和混乱的事件。先前的研究发现，森林中的成年雄性黑猩猩通过经常保持彼此的听觉距离来保持对彼此空间位置的了解，因此当面临潜在的危险情况时，它们可能会相互提供合作。然而，虽然各方之间的沟通已被确立为一种协调模式，但谁是呼叫者，更有趣的是，谁是响应者尚未得到调查。这可以让我们深入了解个体之间的沟通合作是如何基于他们的社会网络和在群体中的地位而产生的。然而，当承认呼叫者、接收者和响应者之间的行为状态差异时，这可能会进一步复杂化。此外，个体并不总是呆在彼此的听觉距离内，因此可能会基于对该地区资源分布的共享生态知识来预测彼此的行动。因此，除了听觉之外，可能还有其他的线索，如生态和认知，可以塑造群体的运动和协调。了解个体和子群体之间相互协调的机制可以让我们了解个体如何在最小化成本的同时优化群体生活的利益。

The project aims to understand how individuals move in coordination with each other in a fission fusion society found in chimpanzees inhabiting a savannah-woodland mosaic. This would entail understanding how multiple individuals can synchronously move in relation to one another from a distance. In fission fusion societies individuals form sub groups whose compositions are often season and activity dependent, in the context of chimpanzees sub-groups are referred to as parties. These parties often fuse together, when entering spaces of high predation risk or those of high food abundance, with grouping patterns of different sexes and age classes being well documented. During these fusion events relationships, both affiliative and antagonistic, may be re-established, as such they can be tense and chaotic events. Previous research has found that adult male chimpanzees in forests maintain knowledge of each-others spatial position by often staying within auditory distance of each other, so that they may provide cooperation to one another when faced with potentially dangerous situations. However, whilst inter-party communication has been established as a mode for coordination, who the callers, and more interestingly, who the responders are have yet to be investigated. This can provide us insights into how cooperation via communication between individuals can arise based on their social networks and position in the group. However, this may be further complicated when acknowledging differences in behavioural states between callers, receivers and responders. Furthermore, individuals do not always stay within auditory distance of each other and so may be anticipating each others' movements based on the shared ecological knowledge of the distribution of resources in the area. Therefore, there may be other cues besides auditory such as ecological and cognitive that may shape group movement and coordination. Understanding the mechanisms by which individuals and sub-groups coordinate between each other can provide us insights into how individuals can optimise the benefits of group living while minimising the costs.