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Dominant baboons experience more interrupted and less rest at night

Marco Fele, Charlotte Christensen, Anna M. Bracken, M. Justin O’ Riain, Miguel Lurgi Rivera Orcid Logo, Marina Papadopoulou Orcid Logo, Ines Fuertbauer Orcid Logo, Andrew King Orcid Logo

Current Biology

Swansea University Authors: Marco Fele, Miguel Lurgi Rivera Orcid Logo, Marina Papadopoulou Orcid Logo, Ines Fuertbauer Orcid Logo, Andrew King Orcid Logo

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Abstract

Sleep is a fundamental biological process.1,2 The amount and quality of sleep individuals get can impact various aspects of human and non-human animal health,1 ultimately affecting fitness.3 For wild animals that sleep in groups, individuals may disturb one another’s sleep,4,5 but this aspect of soc...

Full description

Published in: Current Biology
ISSN: 0960-9822 1879-0445
Published: Elsevier BV 2025
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71143
Abstract: Sleep is a fundamental biological process.1,2 The amount and quality of sleep individuals get can impact various aspects of human and non-human animal health,1 ultimately affecting fitness.3 For wild animals that sleep in groups, individuals may disturb one another’s sleep,4,5 but this aspect of social sleep has been understudied due to methodological challenges.6,7,8 Here, using nighttime rest (absence of bodily movements) as a proxy for sleep, we test the hypothesis that an individual's social dominance affects nighttime rest in a troop of wild, highly hierarchical8,9 chacma baboons (Papio ursinus). First, we show that the troop’s nighttime rest (determined by 40 Hz acceleration data) is highly synchronized. Next, we link nighttime rest dynamics to daytime spatial networks and dominance hierarchy (from 1 Hz GPS data and direct observations). We show that baboon nighttime states (activity and rest) are more synchronized between similarly ranked individuals and, unexpectedly, that more dominant baboons experience more interrupted and less nighttime rest than lower-ranked baboons. We propose that this hierarchy effect is explained by higher-ranked baboons resting closer to more group members, which leads them to exert a greater influence on each other’s nighttime behavior compared with lower-ranked individuals. Our study provides the first evidence for the impact of social hierarchies on aspects of sleep in a wild primate, suggesting that dominance status may impose trade-offs between social rank and the quality and quantity of sleep.
Item Description: Report
Keywords: sleep; rest; dominance rank; collective behavior; synchrony; chacma baboons; accelerometry; biologging; social networks; leadership
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Funders: M.F. was funded by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council studentship (project reference: 2252927). M.J.O. was supported by NRF incentive funding. A.M.B. and C.C. were supported by College of Science/Swansea University PhD scholarships. M.P. and A.J.K. were supported by an Office for Naval Research (ONR) Global Grant awarded to A.J.K. (number: N629092112030).