Collective decision-making and spatial patterns in orientation of an endemic ungulate on the Tibetan Plateau  

作　　者：严雪婷 王旭 赵雨梦 祝芹 杨乐 李忠秋 Xueting Yan;Xu Wang;Yumeng Zhao;Qin Zhu;Le Yang;Zhongqiu Li(Lab of Animal Behavior&Conservation,School of Life Sciences,Nanjing University,Nanjing,Jiangsu,210023,China;Tibet Plateau Institute of Biology,Lhasa,850000,China)

机构地区：[1]Lab of Animal Behavior&Conservation,School of Life Sciences,Nanjing University,Nanjing,Jiangsu,210023,China [2]Tibet Plateau Institute of Biology,Lhasa,850000,China

出　　处：《Current Zoology》2024年第1期45-58,共14页动物学报（英文版）

基　　金：supported by Tibet Major Science and Technology Project(XZ201901-GA-06);National Natural Science Foundation of China(32101237&41871294);National key research and development program(2022YFC3202104).

摘　　要：Group living animals form striking aggregation patterns and display synchronization,polarization,and collective intelligence.Though many col-lective behavioral studies have been conducted on small animals like insects and fish,research on large animals is still rare due to the limited availability of field collective data.We used drones to record videos and analyzed the decision-making and behavioral spatial patterns in orienta-tion of Kiang(Tibetan wild ass,Equus kiang).Leadership is unevenly distributed among Kiang,with the minority initiating majority behavior-shift decisions.Decisions of individual to join are driven by imitation between group members,and are largely dependent on the number of members who have already joined.Kiang respond to the behavior and position of neighbors through different strategies.They strongly polarize when moving,therefore adopting a linear alignment.When vigilant,orientation deviation increases as they form a tighter group.They remain scattered while feeding and,in that context,adopt a side-by-side alignment.This study reveals partially-shared decision-making among Kiang,whereby copying neighbors provides the wisdom to thrive in harsh conditions.This study also suggests that animals'spatial patterns in orientation depend largely ontheirbehavioral states inachieving synchronization.

关 键 词：decision-making IMITATION spatial position Tibetan wild ass 

分 类 号：Q95[生物学—动物学]