Long-term tracking reveals a dynamic crocodylian social system

Cameron J. Baker; Céline H. Frère; Craig E. Franklin; Hamish A. Campbell; Terri R. Irwin; Ross G. Dwyer

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.02.015

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Long-term tracking reveals a dynamic crocodylian social system

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Long-term tracking reveals a dynamic crocodylian social system

Cameron J. Baker, Céline H. Frère, Craig E. Franklin, Hamish A. Campbell, Terri R. Irwin and Ross G. Dwyer

Animal Behaviour, Vol.199, pp.59-78

2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.02.015

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Abstract

acoustic telemetry

Crocodylusporosus

estuarine crocodile

lagged association rate

social network analysis

sociality

spatially explicit null model

Animal social systems are inherently dynamic, with individuals moderating how they associate with conspecifics according to spatiotemporal shifts in population demography and resource availability. Understanding such variation is important not only to further our knowledge of a species' ecology but also to gain insights into the factors influencing the evolution of animal social systems. Using a 10-year acoustic telemetry data set containing the movements and co-occurrences of 166 tagged individuals, we investigated how time of year, individual sex and maturity status affect the social organization and connectivity of a wild population of estuarine crocodiles, Crocodylus porosus. We found that our tagged population of crocodiles displayed social structure, where individuals segregated spatially into distinct communities along 120km of river and estuary. The social organization and structure of these communities were temporally dynamic, with association rates and the connectedness of individuals peaking during the dry season before disintegrating prior to the onset of the wet season. The formation of communities was found to coincide with an increase in the frequency of co-occurrence events between mature and mature–immature dyads prior to the onset of the mating season. Together these findings indicate that estuarine crocodiles have a structured social system, where the proximity to the mating season and an individual's maturity status dictate how they associate with conspecifics.

Details

Title: Long-term tracking reveals a dynamic crocodylian social system
Authors: Cameron J. Baker (Corresponding Author) - The University of Queensland
Céline H. Frère (Author) - The University of Queensland
Craig E. Franklin (Author) - The University of Queensland
Hamish A. Campbell (Author) - Charles Darwin University
Terri R. Irwin (Author) - Australia Zoo
Ross G. Dwyer (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Publication details: Animal Behaviour, Vol.199, pp.59-78
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd
Date published: 2023
DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.02.015
ISSN: 1095-8282; 0003-3472
Copyright note: © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0).
Organisation Unit: School of Health - Biomedicine; School of Science, Technology and Engineering; School of Health - Public Health
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99716031602621
Output Type: Journal article

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Web Of Science research areas: Behavioral Sciences; Zoology

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