Are social network measures associated with the propensity to alarm call in yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris)?

Abstract

Alarm calling is a behavior that typically benefits individuals through an increase in indirect fitness, an increase in social status, or in relation to reciprocity. Despite the risk of potentially higher detection by predators, callers emit these vocalizations in response to a threat. While previous studies have examined the costs and benefits of alarm calling, few have examined how individual factors such as social network position can influence the propensity to alarm call. Social network position may have a strong influence on how an individual behaves. Individuals can vary in how central, involved or influential, and connected to other individuals they are in a network. Thus, how interactive an individual is or the strength of relationships between individuals can influence the rate of alarm calling. We examined how various social network measures (degree centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, strength, and embeddedness) were related to the likelihood of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) to call by running a principle component analysis to produce two factors, ‘superficial popularity’ and ‘relationship strength’. Using generalized linear mixed effects models, we found that the wild or natural rate of alarm calling increased for marmots that were less superficially popular, while the in-trap rate of alarm calling increased for marmots involved in weaker relationships. Less popular marmots could be seeking a status gain, participating in reciprocal alarm calling, allocating more time to vigilance, or deterring predators without the aid of others. Similarly, marmots in traps are faced with an imminent and individualized threat, thus those in weaker relationships cannot rely on other marmots to alarm call, so they call in order to deter predators. 2

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