Maintaining the balance of power in animal societies

• Applicant: Dr. Danai Papageorgiou, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 563553031

Group living can enhance survival and reproductive success, but these benefits are often unequally distributed, with some individuals gaining priority access to vital resources. Power, the ability to achieve one’s preferences and influence others, extends beyond dominance and does not always correlate with it. Although dominance hierarchies are common in animal societies, the influence that dominants can exert varies and may be regulated by the group majority. Power dynamics can be shaped by a range of behaviours, including levelling, where less powerful individuals seek to improve their outcomes when the costs of remaining in the group outweigh the benefits. Despite their significance in maintaining group living, levelling behaviours in animal societies remain largely unexplored, though they have been extensively studied by cultural and evolutionary anthropologists. I propose to investigate levelling behaviours across animal societies, which may have different underlying mechanisms but exhibit functional convergence. This research will combine experimental manipulations, cutting-edge tracking, genetic methods, and traditional observations to address four main objectives. First (Objective 1), I will examine coalitionary attacks on dominants by analysing long-term datasets across species to identify the triggers and consequences of these coordinated actions. I will explore whether levelling coalitions occur after a rise in dominance interactions involving the targeted dominant, or if they are independent of the dominant’s behaviour. Second (Objective 2), I will investigate leadership dynamics in moving animal groups using robotic and real fish. Through experimental manipulations, I will test if shared decision-making processes emerge to redistribute influence when robot fish monopolise leadership in group movements. As real fish gain private information, they will rely less on robotic leaders, allowing me to track how the school’s decision-making responds to varying environmental conditions. Third (Objective 3), I will study reproductive opportunities in alliances of male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins that cooperatively consort oestrus females. I will analyse movement patterns, revealed by drones and deep learning, along with social interactions and reproductive success within these alliances. This study will reveal how equal access to females is maintained in cooperating trios and pairs, leading to reproductive (in-)equality among male allies. Lastly, I will synthesize this work (Objective 4) through computational modelling to understand how levelling contributes to the balance of power in animal societies. By integrating long-term datasets, experimental work in controlled environments, tracking wild animals, and computational modelling, this research programme provides a unique opportunity to comprehend levelling mechanisms and their broader implications for animal societies.

• DFG Programme: Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Groups