Data from: Group cohesion in foraging meerkats: follow the moving ‘vocal hot spot’

Group coordination when ‘on the move’ is a challenge faced by many social living animals. Meerkats (Suricata suricatta) a small, social carnivore, forage as a cohesive group while moving continuously. While foraging, they emit frequent “close calls”, soft close-range contact calls. Variations in their call rates based on the local environment coupled with variable movement produce a dynamic landscape with a moving ‘vocal hotspot’ of high calling activity. We investigated whether meerkats follow such a vocal hotspot by playing back close calls of multiple individuals to a group of foraging meerkats from the front and back edge of the group simultaneously. These two artificially induced vocal hotspots caused the group to spatially elongate and split into two subgroups. We conclude that meerkats use the emergent dynamic call pattern of the group to adjust their movement direction and maintain cohesion.