Data from three camera trapping pilots in the Amsterdam Water Supply Dunes of the Netherlands.

This paper presents the data (images, observations, metadata) of three different deployments of camera traps in the Amsterdam Water Supply Dunes, a Natura 2000 nature reserve in the coastal dunes of the Netherlands. The pilots were aimed at determining how different types of camera deployment (e.g. regular vs. wide lens, various heights, inside/outside exclosures) might influence species detections, and how to deploy autonomous wildlife monitoring networks. Two pilots were conducted in herbivore exclosures and mainly detected European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes). The third pilot was conducted outside exclosures, with the European fallow deer (Dama dama) being most prevalent. Across all three pilots, a total of 47,597 images were annotated using the Agouti platform. All annotations were verified and quality-checked by a human expert. A total of 2,779 observations of 20 different species (including humans) were observed using 11 wildlife cameras during 2021-2023. The raw image files (excluding humans), image metadata, deployment metadata and observations from each pilot are shared using the Camtrap DP open standard and the extended data publishing capabilities of GBIF to increase the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of this data. The data are freely available and can be used for developing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that automatically detect and identify species from wildlife camera images.

Group size and modularity interact to shape the spread of infection and information through animal societies.

Social interactions between animals can provide many benefits, including the ability to gain useful environmental information through social learning. However, these social contacts can also facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases through a population. Animals engaging in social interactions therefore face a trade-off between the potential informational benefits and the risk of acquiring disease. Theoretical models have suggested that modular social networks, associated with the formation of groups or sub-groups, can slow spread of infection by trapping it within particular groups. However, these social structures will not necessarily impact the spread of information in the same way if its transmission follows a "complex contagion", e.g. through individuals disproportionally copying the majority (conformist learning). Here we use simulation models to demonstrate that modular networks can promote the spread of information relative to the spread of infection, but only when the network is fragmented and group sizes are small. We show that the difference in transmission between information and disease is maximised for more well-connected social networks when the likelihood of transmission is intermediate. Our results have important implications for understanding the selective pressures operating on the social structure of animal societies, revealing that highly fragmented networks such as those formed in fission-fusion social groups and multilevel societies can be effective in modulating the infection-information trade-off for individuals within them. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-021-03102-4.

Long-term overlap of social and genetic structure in free-ranging house mice reveals dynamic seasonal and group size effects.

Associating with relatives in social groups can bring benefits such as reduced risk of aggression and increased likelihood of cooperation. Competition among relatives over limited resources, on the other hand, can induce individuals to alter their patterns of association. Population density might further affect the costs and benefits of associating with relatives by altering resource competition or by changing the structure of social groups; preventing easy association with relatives. Consequently, the overlap between genetic and social structure is expected to decrease with increasing population size, as well as during times of increased breeding activity. Here, we use multi-layer network techniques to quantify the similarity between long-term, high resolution genetic, and behavioral data from a large population of free-ranging house mice (Mus musculus domesticus), studied over 10 years. We infer how the benefit of associating with genetically similar individuals might fluctuate in relation to breeding behavior and environmental conditions. We found a clear seasonal effect, with decreased overlap between social and genetic structure during summer months, characterized by high temperatures and high breeding activity. Though the effect of overall population size was relatively weak, we found a clear decrease in the overlap between genetic similarity and social associations within larger groups. As well as longer-term within-group changes, these results reveal population-wide short-term shifts in how individuals associate with relatives. Our study suggests that resource competition modifies the trade-off between the costs and benefits of interacting with relatives.

A natural catastrophic turnover event: individual sociality matters despite community resilience in wild house mice.

Natural disasters can cause rapid demographic changes that disturb the social structure of a population as individuals may lose connections. These changes also have indirect effects as survivors alter their within-group connections or move between groups. As group membership and network position may influence individual fitness, indirect effects may affect how individuals and populations recover from catastrophic events. Here we study changes in the social structure after a large predation event in a population of wild house mice (Mus musculus domesticus), when a third of adults were lost. Using social network analysis, we examine how heterogeneity in sociality results in varied responses to losing connections. We then investigate how these differences influence the overall network structure. An individual's reaction to losing associates depended on its sociality prior to the event. Those that were less social before formed more weak connections afterwards, while more social individuals reduced the number of survivors they associated with. Otherwise, the number and size of social groups were highly robust. This indicates that social preferences can drive how individuals adjust their social behaviour after catastrophic turnover events, despite the population's resilience in social structure.

Consistent sociality but flexible social associations across temporal and spatial foraging contexts in a colonial breeder.

When the consequences of sociality differ depending on the state of individual animals and the experienced environment, individuals may benefit from altering their social behaviours in a context-dependent manner. Thus, to fully address the hypotheses about the role of social associations it is imperative to consider the multidimensional nature of sociality by explicitly examining social associations across multiple scales and contexts. We simultaneously recorded > 8000 associations from 85% of breeding individuals from a colony of Australasian gannets (Morus serrator) over a 2-week period, and examined gregariousness across four foraging states using multilayer social network analysis. We found that social associations varied in a context-dependent manner, highlighting that social associations are most prevalent during foraging (local enhancement) and in regions expected to provide clustered resources. We also provide evidence of individual consistency in gregariousness, but flexibility in social associates, demonstrating that individuals can adjust their social behaviours to match experienced conditions.

Social information use and collective foraging in a pursuit diving seabird.

Individuals of many species utilise social information whilst making decisions. While many studies have examined social information in making large scale decisions, there is increasing interest in the use of fine scale social cues in groups. By examining the use of these cues and how they alter behaviour, we can gain insights into the adaptive value of group behaviours. We investigated the role of social information in choosing when and where to dive in groups of socially foraging European shags. From this we aimed to determine the importance of social information in the formation of these groups. We extracted individuals' surface trajectories and dive locations from video footage of collective foraging and used computational Bayesian methods to infer how social interactions influence diving. Examination of group spatial structure shows birds form structured aggregations with higher densities of conspecifics directly in front of and behind focal individuals. Analysis of diving behaviour reveals two distinct rates of diving, with birds over twice as likely to dive if a conspecific dived within their visual field in the immediate past. These results suggest that shag group foraging behaviour allows individuals to sense and respond to their environment more effectively by making use of social cues.

Characterizing innovators: Ecological and individual predictors of problem-solving performance.

Behavioural innovation, the use of new behaviours or existing ones in novel contexts, can have important ecological and evolutionary consequences for animals. An understanding of these consequences would be incomplete without considering the traits that predispose certain individuals to exhibit innovative behaviour. Several individual and ecological variables are hypothesized to affect innovativeness, but empirical studies show mixed results. We examined the effects of dominance rank, exploratory personality, and urbanisation on the innovativeness of wild-caught black-capped chickadees using a survival analysis of their performance in two problem-solving tasks. Additionally, we provide one of the first investigations of the predictors of persistence in a problem-solving context. For lever pulling, we found a trend for dominants to outperform subordinates, particularly in rural birds, which did not align with predictions from the necessity drives innovation hypothesis. When examining possible explanations for this trend we found that older chickadees outperformed younger birds. This follow-up analysis also revealed a positive effect of exploratory personality on the lever-pulling performance of chickadees. Our results suggest that experience may foster innovation in certain circumstances, for instance via the application of previously-acquired information or skills to a novel problem. As we found different predictors for both tasks, this suggests that task characteristics influence the innovative propensity of individuals, and that their effects should be investigated experimentally.

Urbanization and the temporal patterns of social networks and group foraging behaviors.

Urbanization causes dramatic and rapid changes to natural environments, which can lead the animals inhabiting these habitats to adjust their behavioral responses. For social animals, urbanized environments may alter group social dynamics through modification of the external environment (e.g., resource distribution). This might lead to changes in how individuals associate or engage in group behaviors, which could alter the stability and characteristics of social groups. However, the potential impacts of urban habitat use, and of habitat characteristics in general, on the nature and stability of social associations remain poorly understood. Here, we quantify social networks and dynamics of group foraging behaviors of black-capped chickadees (N = 82, Poecile atricapillus), at four urban and four rural sites weekly throughout the nonbreeding season using feeders with radio frequency identification of individual birds. Because anthropogenic food sources in urban habitats (e.g., bird feeders) provide abundant and reliable resources, we predicted that social foraging associations may be of less value in urban groups, and thus would be less consistent than in rural groups. Additionally, decreased variability of food resources in urban habitats could lead to more predictable foraging patterns (group size, foraging duration, and the distribution of foraging events) in contrast to rural habitats. Networks were found to be highly consistent through time in both urban and rural habitats. No significant difference was found in the temporal clumping of foraging events between habitats. However, as predicted, the repeatability of the clumping of foraging events in time was significantly higher in urban than rural habitats. Our results suggest that individuals living in urban areas have more consistent foraging behaviors throughout the nonbreeding season, whereas rural individuals adjust their tactics due to less predictable foraging conditions. This first examination of habitat-related differences in the characteristics and consistency of social networks along an urbanization gradient suggests that anthropic habitat use results in subtle modifications in social foraging patterns. Future studies should examine potential implications of these differences for variation in predation risk, energy intake, and information flow.

Effects of ambient noise on zebra finch vigilance and foraging efficiency.

Ambient noise can affect the availability of acoustic information to animals, altering both foraging and vigilance behaviour. Using captive zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata, we examined the effect of ambient broadband noise on foraging decisions. Birds were given a choice between foraging in a quiet area where conspecific calls could be heard or a noisy area where these calls would be masked. Birds foraging in noisy areas spent a significantly more time vigilant than those in quiet areas, resulting in less efficient foraging. Despite this there was no significant difference in the amount of time spent in the two noise regimes. However there did appear a preference for initially choosing quiet patches during individuals' second trial. These results emphasise how masking noise can influence the foraging and anti-predation behaviour of animals, which is particularly relevant as anthropogenic noise becomes increasingly prevalent in the natural world.

Information use in colonial living.

Despite the fact that many animals live in groups, there is still no clear consensus about the ecological or evolutionary mechanisms underlying colonial living. Recently, research has suggested that colonies may be important as sources of social information. The ready availability of information from conspecifics allows animals to make better decisions about avoiding predators, reducing brood parasitism, migratory phenology, mate choice, habitat choice and foraging. These choices can play a large part in the development and maintenance of colonies. Here we review the types of information provided by colonial animals and examine the different ways in which decision-making in colonies can be enhanced by social information. We discuss what roles information might take in the evolution, formation and maintenance of colonies. In the process, we illustrate that information use permeates all aspects of colonial living.