TY - JOUR
T1 - Camera traps provide a robust alternative to direct observations for constructing social networks of wild chimpanzees
AU - McCarthy, Maureen S.
AU - Després-Einspenner, Marie Lyne
AU - Farine, Damien R.
AU - Samuni, Liran
AU - Angedakin, Samuel
AU - Arandjelovic, Mimi
AU - Boesch, Christophe
AU - Dieguez, Paula
AU - Havercamp, Kristin
AU - Knight, Alex
AU - Langergraber, Kevin E.
AU - Wittig, Roman M.
AU - Kühl, Hjalmar S.
N1 - Funding Information:
For support, we thank the Max Planck Society Innovation Fund and the Heinz L. Krekeler Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, the Centre for Forest Research–Fonds de Recherche Québec Nature et Technologies International internship program, and the DFG Centre for Excellence 2117 'Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour' (ID: 422037984). For research permission, we thank Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, Ministère de l’Environnement et des Eaux et Forêts, the Office Ivoirien de Parcs et Reserves in Côte d'Ivoire, Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST) and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) . We thank the Taï Chimpanzee Project (TCP) and the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project for the opportunity to conduct research in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda, respectively. We thank Appollinaire Gnahe Djirian, Oulaï Landry, Frédéric Yehanon Oulaï and Anna Preis for providing party composition data extracted from the long-term database of the TCP, as well as Frédéric Yehanon Oulaï for identifying chimpanzees in the camera trap videos. We thank Mizuki Murai for logistical support in PanAf data collection and coordination.
Funding Information:
For support, we thank the Max Planck Society Innovation Fund and the Heinz L. Krekeler Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, the Centre for Forest Research–Fonds de Recherche Québec Nature et Technologies International internship program, and the DFG Centre for Excellence 2117 'Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour' (ID: 422037984). For research permission, we thank Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, Ministère de l'Environnement et des Eaux et Forêts, the Office Ivoirien de Parcs et Reserves in Côte d'Ivoire, Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST) and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). We thank the Taï Chimpanzee Project (TCP) and the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project for the opportunity to conduct research in Côte d'Ivoire and Uganda, respectively. We thank Appollinaire Gnahe Djirian, Oulaï Landry, Frédéric Yehanon Oulaï and Anna Preis for providing party composition data extracted from the long-term database of the TCP, as well as Frédéric Yehanon Oulaï for identifying chimpanzees in the camera trap videos. We thank Mizuki Murai for logistical support in PanAf data collection and coordination.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
PY - 2019/11
Y1 - 2019/11
N2 - Social network analysis provides valuable opportunities to quantify the nature of social relationships in animal societies including aspects of group structure, dynamics and behaviour transmission. Remote monitoring approaches such as camera trapping offer rich data sets from groups and species that are difficult to observe, yet the robustness of these data for constructing social networks remains unexplored. Here we compared networks of party association based on camera traps with those based on direct observations over the same 9-month sampling period in a group of habituated western chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes verus. Networks based on camera traps and direct observations were both stable with sufficient sampling, and had very similar structures, patterns of sex assortment and individual network positions. However, camera trap data led to lower estimates of group density and dyadic association strengths, and slightly higher modularity, illustrating the limitations raised by differences in data collection methods for network comparisons. We then constructed a social network using camera trap data from unhabituated eastern chimpanzees, P.t. schweinfurthii, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach in the absence of extensive prior knowledge of the study subjects. Further, differences between the eastern and western chimpanzee social networks followed expected patterns based on recognized social differences, illustrating the promise of this approach for detecting within-species social variation. Although long-term behavioural observations will continue to provide rich data for many species, camera traps offer a powerful alternative to gain information on social group dynamics in elusive or unhabituated animals, as well as to conduct systematic multisite comparative studies.
AB - Social network analysis provides valuable opportunities to quantify the nature of social relationships in animal societies including aspects of group structure, dynamics and behaviour transmission. Remote monitoring approaches such as camera trapping offer rich data sets from groups and species that are difficult to observe, yet the robustness of these data for constructing social networks remains unexplored. Here we compared networks of party association based on camera traps with those based on direct observations over the same 9-month sampling period in a group of habituated western chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes verus. Networks based on camera traps and direct observations were both stable with sufficient sampling, and had very similar structures, patterns of sex assortment and individual network positions. However, camera trap data led to lower estimates of group density and dyadic association strengths, and slightly higher modularity, illustrating the limitations raised by differences in data collection methods for network comparisons. We then constructed a social network using camera trap data from unhabituated eastern chimpanzees, P.t. schweinfurthii, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach in the absence of extensive prior knowledge of the study subjects. Further, differences between the eastern and western chimpanzee social networks followed expected patterns based on recognized social differences, illustrating the promise of this approach for detecting within-species social variation. Although long-term behavioural observations will continue to provide rich data for many species, camera traps offer a powerful alternative to gain information on social group dynamics in elusive or unhabituated animals, as well as to conduct systematic multisite comparative studies.
KW - Pan troglodytes
KW - association patterns
KW - biomonitoring
KW - camera trap
KW - chimpanzee
KW - fission–fusion
KW - social network analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073574443&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85073574443&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.08.008
DO - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.08.008
M3 - Comment/debate
AN - SCOPUS:85073574443
SN - 0003-3472
VL - 157
SP - 227
EP - 238
JO - Animal Behaviour
JF - Animal Behaviour
ER -