Influences on Female Social Networks in Old-World Primates

Primates are for the most part intensely social, and
dedicate large proportions of their time budgets to
servicing social relationships through grooming.
Conflicting arguments have been proposed to explain
the limits shown in group size; is it a restriction
in the brain capacity of females to keep track of
all their relationships, or could it be an
ecologicaly imposed limit in the time available to
socially interact and build relationships? Using
methods taken from social network analysis, this
study attempts to uncouple these two explanations by
examining how each affects aspects of group
structure and network coherence. A cross species
examination suggests that group size is determined
by a combination of ecological factors and cognitive
ability. Most network measures were influenced only
by group size or the size of grooming clans implying
that the causal pathways determining group size do
not originate with the ability of individual females
to groom each other, but that female grooming
decisions are a consequence of the size of the clans
formed and therefore ultimately a consequence of
group size.

Autorentext

After graduating with a first class honours degree in Zoology from the University of Dundee, Katherine studied social behaviour of feral goats before commencing a postgraduate degree at the University of Liverpool. This research was supervised by Professor Dunbar as a part of the British Academy Centenary Research Project - Lucy to Language.

Klappentext

Primates are for the most part intensely social, and dedicate large proportions of their time budgets to servicing social relationships through grooming. Conflicting arguments have been proposed to explain the limits shown in group size; is it a restriction in the brain capacity of females to keep track of all their relationships, or could it be an ecologicaly imposed limit in the time available to socially interact and build relationships? Using methods taken from social network analysis, this study attempts to uncouple these two explanations by examining how each affects aspects of group structure and network coherence. A cross species examination suggests that group size is determined by a combination of ecological factors and cognitive ability. Most network measures were influenced only by group size or the size of grooming clans implying that the causal pathways determining group size do not originate with the ability of individual females to groom each other, but that female grooming decisions are a consequence of the size of the clans formed and therefore ultimately a consequence of group size.