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| Mothers and Others: feedback loops between individual and group networks in relation to birth events |
| Chlo� Vilette1,2, Tyler Bonnell2,3, Peter Henzi1,2, Louise Barrett1,2. 1University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada; 2University of South Africa, Pretoria, , South Africa; 3University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
The birth of a first offspring represents a major shift in a female’s social circumstances, and presents opportunities for the formation of new, and potentially advantageous, ties to others. From the perspective of the group as a whole, the arrival of a cohort of newborns leads to changes in group size and composition, giving rise to the potential for the restructuring of existing relationships and shifts in social dynamics. Here, we focus on the transition to motherhood in a population of wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus). Using a dynamic multilayer framework, we investigate how both individual grooming and spatial proximity behaviours shift in relation to birth events among primiparous and multiparous females, and the impact on ego-networks and the network structure of the group as a whole. Our aim is to determine whether overall group structure is robust to major social events like the birth season, or whether the restructuring of individual ego-networks is also felt at the group level and, if so, whether the reconfiguring of global social structure feeds back to influence individual flexibility. |