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Group size, survival and surprisingly short lifespan in socially foraging bats

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Ecology and Evolution, January 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (92nd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (91st percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
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19 X users
facebook
3 Facebook pages
wikipedia
4 Wikipedia pages

Citations

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23 Dimensions

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127 Mendeley
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Title
Group size, survival and surprisingly short lifespan in socially foraging bats
Published in
BMC Ecology and Evolution, January 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12898-016-0056-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Yann Gager, Olivier Gimenez, M. Teague O’Mara, Dina K. N. Dechmann

Abstract

The relationships between group size, survival, and longevity vary greatly among social species. Depending on demographic and ecological circumstances, there are both positive and negative effects of group size variation on individual survival and longevity. For socially foraging species in particular there may be an optimal group size that predicts maximum individual survival that is directly related to the potential for information transfer, social coordination, and costs of conspecific interference. Our aim was to investigate this central aspect of evolutionary ecology by focusing on a socially foraging bat, Molossus molossus. This species optimizes foraging success by eavesdropping on the echolocation calls of group members to locate ephemeral food patches. We expected to find the highest survival and longest lifespans in small groups as a consequence of a trade-off between benefits of information transfer on ephemeral resources and costs of conspecific interference. In a mark-recapture study of 14 mixed-sex M. molossus social groups in Gamboa, Panama, spanning several years we found the expected relatively small and intermediate, but stable groups, with a mean size of 9.6 ± 6.7 adults and juveniles. We estimated survival proxies using Cox proportional hazard models and multistate-mark recapture models generated with recapture data as well as automated monitoring of roost entrances in a subset of the groups. Median survival of females was very short with 1.8 years and a maximum estimated longevity of 5.6 years. Contrary to our expectations, we found no relationship between variation in group size and survival, a result similar to few other studies. Strong selection towards small group size may result from psychoacoustic and cognitive constraints related to acoustic interference in social foraging and the complexity of coordinated flight. The short lifespans were unexpected and may result from life at the energetic edge due to a highly specialized diet. The absence of a relationship between group size and survival may reflect a similar but optimized survival within the selected range of group sizes. We expect the pattern of small group sizes will be consistent in future research on species dependent on social information transfer about ephemeral resources.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 19 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 127 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Switzerland 2 2%
Germany 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Slovenia 1 <1%
United States 1 <1%
Unknown 121 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 24 19%
Researcher 22 17%
Student > Master 14 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 12 9%
Student > Bachelor 9 7%
Other 19 15%
Unknown 27 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 58 46%
Environmental Science 15 12%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 8 6%
Medicine and Dentistry 2 2%
Unspecified 2 2%
Other 8 6%
Unknown 34 27%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 22. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 September 2023.
All research outputs
#1,734,526
of 25,374,917 outputs
Outputs from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#414
of 3,714 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#29,544
of 402,283 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#7
of 84 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,374,917 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,714 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 402,283 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 84 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.