Coatis

Conflict and consensus in coatis

Photo by Emily Grout

White-nosed coatis are social carnivores that live in a wide variety of habitat types throughout the Americas. Groups are composed of unrelated females and their young, while males are mainly solitary but associate with groups during the mating season. Coati groups often remain cohesive as they move throughout their ranges, but they also sometimes split into subgroups.

Our research focuses on how coati groups come to consensus on when and where to move, what drives them to split up, and how and why they come back together again.

We collect data using multi-sensor collars, allowing us to monitor the movements, vocalizations, and behaviors of entire social groups simultaneously.

Our coati research is in collaboration with co-PIs Ben Hirsch and Meg Crofoot, in association with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Subgrouping patterns

Coati groups are dynamic -- individuals split and merge with their group mates over time. When groups split, what drives decisions about who individuals choose to stay with or split up from?

Our results show that these decisions are not random. Individuals are more likely to remain together with the same set of group mates, resulting in consistent subgrouping patterns.

Through genetic analyses, we found that subgrouping patterns are driven by family ties -- coatis tend to remain with their close relatives when subgroups part ways.

Grout et al. 2024

Dynamics of splits

Because individuals are constantly making decisions about whether to stay together or split up, fission-fusion dynamics provide a window into how animals are balancing the costs and benefits of grouping over time. By examining when and how groups split, we can gain insight into why they split.

For instance, our data shows that splits most often involve one subgroup moving off from another subgroup that remains stationary (left), as opposed to the two subgroups moving in different directions (right). This suggests that splits may reflect conflicting preferences over when but not where to move.

We are also examining how vocalizations such as contact calls and aggression calls are used during group movement, splits, and merges.

Grout et al. in prep

Grout et al. submitted

Header image source: Christian Ziegler

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