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Authors & Affiliations
Sylvia Wirth,Tadeusz Kononowicz,Felipe Rolando,Lucas Maigre,Sébastien Ballesta,Angela Sirigu,Jean-René Duhamel
Abstract
Space can be a limited resource. Many species including humans, evolved a compromise regulating space sharing and its occupancy based on social determinants. For example, students in a classroom tend to sit close to their friends, keeping the same spots across days, revealing the social structure in the classroom. This place preference suggests that factors such as social hierarchy and affiliation can shape space utilization; contrasting with classical random walk models of agents moving at random in any given direction. Here, we asked whether spatial occupancy of macaques (Macaca fascicularis and M. mulatta) within a unisex group, reveals a structured space utilization beyond simple spatial affordance of the finite space. To this end, in two groups of four animals, we analyzed the simultaneously recorded positions of each individual of the group while the group roamed in an enclosure. (1) The identity of each animal could be decoded from its individual pattern of spatial occupancy, revealing that each animal sustained its spatial footprint across multiple days. (2) Average distance between monkeys was a proxy of their social hierarchy, confirming that interpersonal distance is correlated to affiliation and dominance hierarchy. (3) Alternating the social context by removing one of the monkeys revealed that social context influences occupancy. (4) Finally, the distribution of distance between pairs of monkeys was bimodal and was modeled using random walk approach with an additional parameter reflecting propensity to stay in close proximity, which was again related to dominance hierarchy. These analyses reveal the hidden structured nature of space utilization as a function of social determinants in macaques and simple modeling approach to further study group organization in neuro-ethological settings.