Data from: Habitat and social factors shape individual decisions and emergent group structure during baboon collective movement

For group-living animals traveling through heterogeneous landscapes, collective movement can be influenced by both habitat structure and social interactions. Yet research in collective behavior has largely neglected habitat influences on movement. Here we integrate simultaneous, high-resolution, tracking of wild baboons within a troop with a 3-dimensional reconstruction of their habitat to identify key drivers of baboon movement. A previously unexplored social influence – baboons’ preference for locations that other troop members have recently traversed – is the most important predictor of individual movement decisions. Habitat is shown to influence movement over multiple spatial scales, from long-range attraction and repulsion from the troop’s sleeping site, to relatively local influences including road-following and a short-range avoidance of dense vegetation. Scaling to the collective level reveals a clear association between habitat features and the emergent structure of the group, highlighting the importance of habitat heterogeneity in shaping group coordination.

对于在异质景观中移动的群居动物而言，群体移动行为同时受到栖息地结构与社会互动的双重影响。然而，当前的群体行为研究大多忽视了栖息地对移动行为的调控作用。本研究将某一狒狒群体内野生狒狒的同步高分辨率追踪数据，与其栖息地的三维重建结果相结合，以明确狒狒移动行为的关键驱动因素。研究发现，此前未被探索的一项社会影响因素——狒狒偏好其他群体成员近期途经的位置——是个体移动决策的最重要预测因子。栖息地对移动行为的影响覆盖多个空间尺度：从群体睡眠位点带来的长距离吸引与排斥效应，到相对局部的影响，例如沿道路移动以及近距离避开茂密植被。将分析尺度提升至群体层面后，可发现栖息地特征与群体涌现结构之间存在明确关联，凸显了栖息地异质性在塑造群体协作过程中的重要性。