Social Experience of Captive Livingstone’s Fruit Bats (Pteropus livingstonii)

摘要

The maintenance and stability of social experience is an especially important element of the captive welfare of zoo-housed species. The population of critically endangered Livingstone’s fruit bats ( ) resident at Jersey Zoo display a complex social structure of affiliative and aggressive interactions. Subgroups defined by individual characteristics contribute in different ways to this structure. Social information, illuminated through the use of social network analysis techniques, could be used in the future to promote social stability and safeguard individual welfare when making evidence-based husbandry decisions.