Nonlinear effects of group size on the success of wolves hunting elk

Behavioral Ecology

Volumn 23, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 75-82

  MacNulty, Daniel R ^a   Smith, Douglas W ^b   Mech, L David ^c   Vucetich, John A ^d   Packer, Craig ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

^b YELLOWSTONE CENTER FOR RESOURCES   (United States)

^c U S GEOLOGICAL SURVEY   (United States)

^d School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science   (United States)

Author keywords

Canis lupus; carnivore; cooperation; free riding; group hunting; group living; interference; predation; sociality; wolf

Indexed keywords

BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY; CANID; CARNIVORE; COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOR; DEER; FORAGING EFFICIENCY; GROUP SIZE; INTERFERENCE COMPETITION; NONLINEARITY; PREDATION; PREY CAPTURE;

UNITED STATES; YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK;

CANIDAE; CANIS FAMILIARIS; CANIS LUPUS; CERVUS ELAPHUS;

EID: 84555170597     PISSN: 10452249     EISSN: 14657279     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arr159     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. Alexander RD. 1974. The evolution of social behavior. Annu Rev Ecol Syst. 5:325-383.
2. Animal Care and Use Committee. 1998. Guidelines for the capture, handling, and care of mammals as approved by the American Society of Mammalogists. J Mammal. 79:1416-1431.
3. Balch T, Arkin RC. 1994. Communication in reactive multiagent robotic systems. Auton Robot. 1:27-52.
4. Bangs EE, Fritts SH. 1996. Reintroducing the gray wolf to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Wildlife Soc B. 24:402-413.
5. Beckers R, Holland OE, Deneubourg JL. 1994. From local actions to global tasks: stigmergy and collective robotics. Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems Artificial Life. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. p. 181-189.
6. Bessaoud F, Daures JP, Molinari N. 2005. Free knot splines for logistic models and threshold selection. Comput Methods Programs Bi-omed. 77:1-9.
7. Boesch C. 1994. Cooperative hunting in wild chimpanzees. Anim Be-hav. 48:653-667.
8. Boesch C, Boesch H. 1989. Hunting behavior of wild chimpanzees in the Tai National Park. Am J Phys Anthropol. 78:547-573.
9. Bonanni R, Valsecchi P, Natoli E. 2010. Pattern of individual participation and cheating in conflicts between groups of free-ranging dogs. Anim Behav. 79:957-968.
10. Burnham KP, Anderson DR. 2002. Model selection and multimodal inference. a practical information-theoretic approach. 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.
11. Clark CW, Mangel M. 1986. The evolutionary advantages of group foraging. Theor Pop Biol. 30:45-75.
12. Coolen I. 2002. Increasing foraging group size increases scrounger use and reduces searching efficiency in nutmeg mannikins (Lonchura punctulata). Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 52:232-238.
13. Creel S, Creel NM. 1995. Communal hunting and pack size in African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus. Anim Behav. 50:1325-1339.
14. Creel S, NM. 2002. The African wild dog: behavior, ecology, and conservation. (NJ): Princeton University Press.
15. Eaton RL. 1970. Hunting behavior of cheetah. J Wildlife Manage. 34:56-67.
16. Eubanks RL. 1984. Approximate regression models and splines. Com-mun Stat Theor M. 13:433-484.
17. Fanshawe JH, Fitzgibbon CD. 1993. Factors influencing the hunting success of an African wild dog pack. Anim Behav. 45:479-490.
18. Funston PJ, Mills MGL, Biggs HC. 2001. Factors affecting the hunting success of male and female lions in the Kruger National Park. J Zool. 253:419-431.
19. Holekamp KE, Smale L, Cooper SM. 1997. Hunting rates and hunting success in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). J Zool. 242:1-15.
20. Houston DB. 1982. The northern Yellowstone elk: ecology and management. New York: MacMillan.
21. Kim KW, Krafft B, Choe JC. 2005. Cooperative prey capture by young subsocial spiders I. Functional value. Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 59:92-100.
22. Kruuk H. 1972. The spotted hyena. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.
23. Kruuk H. 1975. Functional aspects of social hunting by carnivores. In: Sibly RM, Smith RH, editors. Function and evolution in behavior. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. p. 521-526.
24. Lerman K, Galstyan A. 2002. Mathematical model of foraging in a group of robots: effect of interference. Auton Robot. 13:127-141.
25. Lima SL, Dill LM. 1990. Behavioral decisions made under the risk of predation: a review and prospectus. Can J Zool. 68:619-640.
26. MacKenzie ML, Donovan CR, McArdle BH. 2005. Regression spline mixed models: a forestry example. J Agric Biol Environ Stat. 10:394-410.
27. MacNulty DR, Mech LD, Smith DW. 2007. A proposed ethogram of large-carnivore predatory behavior, exemplified by the wolf. J Mammal. 88:595-605.
28. MacNulty DR, Smith DW, Mech LD, Eberly LE. 2009. Body size and predatory performance in wolves: is bigger better? J Anim Ecol. 78:532-539.
29. MacNulty DR, Smith DW, Vucetich JA, Mech LD, Stahler DR, Packer C. 2009. Predatory senescence in ageing wolves. Ecol Lett. 12: 1347-1356.
30. Marsh LC, Cormier DR. 2002. Spline regression models (quantitative applications in the social sciences). Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage.
31. Mech LD, Boitani L. 2003. Wolf social ecology. In: Mech LD, Boitani L, editors. Wolves: behavior, ecology, and conservation. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press. p. 1-34.
32. Mech LD, Phillips MK, Smith DW, Kreeger TJ. 1996. Denning behavior of non-gravid wolves, Canis lupus. Can Field Natur. 110: 343-345.
33. Mills MGL. 1985. Related spotted hyaenas forage together but do not cooperate in rearing young. Nature. 316:61-62.
34. Nunn CL, Lewis RJ. 2001. Cooperation and collective action in animal behavior. In: Noe R, van Hoof JARAM, Hammerstein P, editors. Economics in nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 42-66.
35. Packer C, Ruttan L. 1988. The evolution of cooperative hunting. Am Nat. 132:159-198.
36. Pulliam HR, Caraco T. 1984. Living in groups: is there an optimal group size? In: Krebs JR, Davies NB, editors. Behavioral ecology: an evolutionary approach. 2nd ed. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer. p. 122-127.
37. Rose LM. 1997. Vertebrate predation and food-sharing in Cebus and Pan. Int J Primatol. 18:727-765.
38. Sand H, Wikenros C, Wabakken P, Liberg O. 2006. Effects of hunting group size, snow depth and age on the success of wolves hunting moose. Anim Behav. 72:781-789.
39. Schaller GB. 1972. The Serengeti lion: a study of predator-prey relations. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.
40. Scheel D, Packer C. 1991. Group hunting behavior of lions: a search for cooperation. Anim Behav. 41:697-709.
41. Seber GAF, Wild CJ. 2003. Nonlinear regression. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
42. Smith DW, Drummer TD, Murphy KM, Guernsey DS, Evans SB. 2004. Winter prey selection and estimation of kill rates in Yellowstone National Park, 1995-2000. J Wildlife Manage. 68:153-166.
43. Smith DW, Mech LD, Meagher M, Clark WE, Jaffe R, Phillips MK, Mack JA. 2000. Wolf-bison interactions in Yellowstone National Park. J Mammal. 81:1128-1135.
44. Stander PE. 1992. Foraging dynamics of lions in a semi-arid environment. Can J Zool. 70:8-21.
45. Van Orsdol KG. 1984. Foraging behavior and hunting success of lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. Afr J Ecol. 22:79-99.
46. Von Holdt BM, Stahler DR, Smith DW, Earl DA, Pollinger JP, Wayne RK. 2008. The genealogy and genetic viability of reintroduced Yellowstone grey wolves. Mol Ecol. 17:252-274.
47. Weiss RE. 2005. Modeling longitudinal data. New York: Springer.
48. Wold S. 1974. Spline functions in data analysis. Technometrics. 16:1-11.