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Vigilance, in the field of behavioral ecology, refers to an animal’s examination of its surroundings in order to heighten awareness of predator presence.

Vigilance in Groups

Vigilance is commonly employed by individuals of a group. The vigilant individual watches for predators and may alert others in the group of danger through various alarm signals.

Advantages Individuals in groups participating in vigilance have a decreased response time to predator detection compared to solitary individuals. Vigilant individuals often have prime escape opportunities as the first to spot predators. Groups with individuals participating in vigilance have quicker awareness of predators.

Disadvantages

There is a tradeoff between the amount of time an animal spends foraging and being vigilant, so a disadvantage of being vigilant is having less time to forage ,. Vigilant individuals are at high risk of predation as they are removed from the safety of the group .. In some species, vigilant individuals make alarm calls to let the group know to look for danger. These calls also draw the predator’s attention to the vigilant individual, making the vigilant individual more likely to be injured or killed. Individual vigilance decreases as group size increases.

The “group vigilance hypothesis” refers to individuals taking advantage of others’ vigilance and reducing their own vigilance. Although a vigilant individual fleeing can be an alarm call in itself, sometimes a vigilant individual from a group that makes vocal alarm calls flees without giving the signal, leaving the group at high risk for predation.

Examples

Large flocks of wood pigeons are able to escape predation by goshawks because they are able to spot the hawks and fly away more quickly than they would individually. Ostriches will take turns being vigilant and foraging at certain ponds, alerting one another if a predator (usually a lion) is present .Vigilant meerkats, called “sentinels”, watch for predators (e.g. jackals and various eagle species), hurrying back to the group and making vocal alarm calls if a predator is spotted across the savannah.

References