Effect of ecological factors on fine-scale patterns of social structure in African lions

1. Environmental variations can influence the extent to which individuals interact with other individuals by changing the value of grouping. It is well known that many species can form and disband groups, often in response to the distribution and abundance of resources.
2. While previous studies showed that resources influence the broad-scale structure of animal groups, knowledge gaps remain on whether they affect fine-scale patterns of association among individuals within groups.
3. We quantify association patterns in African lions while simultaneously monitoring the abundance and distribution of prey. We test how social and ecological factors, including individual trait (age, sex, reproductive state) similarity and prey availability (prey abundance, dispersion, herd size and body size) affect within-pride social structure in African lions.
4. We found that individual decisions about associates depended on resource availability with individuals associating equally across all members of...