Nutritional needs and social bonds: early-life dependencies shape meerkat sociality

Zoe Jayne Turner , Christof Neumann, Tommaso Saccà, Sofia Forss

Though there has been considerable research on overall social structures, the dynamics of how an individual's social niche develops during early life and how biological needs of offspring shape sociality have received less attention. In this study, we took a longitudinal approach targeting the developmental period from nutritional dependency to independent foraging, and toward sexual maturity, to assess within-group sociality of a cooperative mammal, Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta). First, we describe within-group social dynamics during foraging with a focus on separating individual- from dyad-specific features. Second, we use these two sociality features to identify formation of social relationships during development. By combining proximity scans with data on social interactions from focal follows, we investigated the behaviours driving the observed social interactions. The strength of dyadic relationships between pups and adults was highest during pups’ nutritional dependence and was positively linked to pup-care behaviours initiated by both adults and pups themselves. The strength of these dyadic relationships decreased after nutritional independence. During early ontogeny, meerkat pups rely heavily on food provisions for survival and learning of their species-specific diet to develop their independent foraging skills. As such, our findings indicate that the ontogeny of social relationships in meerkats is shaped by the socio-ecology of cooperative pup care rather than a need for building long-term individualized relationships.