LIFESCI 3C03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Waggle Dance, Positio, Group Decision-Making
1 Nov 2016
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Potential benefits: protection from climate extremes (huddling for warmth), advantages in locomotion, reducing predation and improving foraging success. It has been shown that individuals use smell to gain knowledge of food sources: decision to recruit others depends on the cost of the food (divisible vs indivisible) Hunting in a group may improve ability to capture prey. Lions hunt in specific positions, with individual specializations as right or left wing or center; hunts were more successful when lionesses were in preferred positions. May be an optimal group size trade off b/w protection from predators/foraging success vs increased resource competition/disease. Optimal group size = benefit (prey capture success) vs cost (having to share the food) In lions, optimal size was 2 lions, but observed size was 3-4 lions: maybe difference is b/c of other benefits of group living like for territory defence against other prides.
