ArticleEcology letters2025
Ecological Interactions Drive a Power-Law Relationship Between Group Size and Population Density in Social Foragers.
Article in Ecology letters, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Social and spatial drivers of the multitiered structure of zebra finch social networks.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Fission-Fusion Group Dynamics and Cooperative Hunting Stabilise Social Carnivore Populations.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Comparative Ungulate Diversity and Biomass Change With Human Use and Drought: Implications for Community Stability and Protected Area Prioritization in African Savannas.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Past work has shown that group formation in foraging animals aids in resource acquisition and reduces the number of interactions with predators. However, group formation can also increase competition for resources among group members. Here, we model how the individual costs and benefits of group formation drive group size. Our model predicts that when competition for resources occurs within and between groups, forager group size will exhibit a one-third power-law relationship with population abundance. However, if groups form due to intragroup competition and predation, we predict either a one-half power-law relationship with population abundance or a constant group size depending on the coupling between predator and prey. Using empirical data on group foraging birds and ungulates, we found a scaling relationship consistent with the one-third power-law, suggesting that hierarchical competition drives the average group size. Our results support work highlighting the importance of density-dependent group formation in maintaining population stability.
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Registered trials
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