Abstract:
In many social vertebrates, variation in group persistence exerts an important effect
on individual fitness and population demography. However, few studies have
been able to investigate the failure of groups or the causes of the variation in their
longevity. We use data from a long-term
study of cooperatively breeding meerkats,
Suricata suricatta, to investigate the different causes of group failure and the factors
that drive these processes. Many newly formed groups failed within a year of
formation, and smaller groups were more likely to fail. Groups that bred successfully
and increased their size could persist for several years, even decades. Long-lived
groups principally failed in association with the development of clinical tuberculosis,
Mycobacterium suricattae, a disease that can spread throughout the group and be
fatal for group members. Clinical tuberculosis was more likely to occur in groups that
had smaller group sizes and that had experienced immigration.
Description:
Chris Duncan: Conceptualization (equal); Data curation (equal);
Formal analysis (lead); Methodology (lead); Writing-original
draft
(lead); Writing-review
& editing (equal). Marta B. Manser: Data curation
(equal); Funding acquisition (equal); Project administration
(equal); Resources (equal); Writing-review
& editing (equal). Tim
Clutton-Brock:
Conceptualization (equal); Data curation (equal);
Funding acquisition (equal); Project administration (equal); Resources
(equal); Supervision (equal); Writing-review
& editing (equal).