Choosing suitable sleeping sites is a common challenge faced by animals across a range of taxa, with important implications for the space usage patterns of individuals, groups, and ultimately populations. A range of factors may affect these decisions, including access to resources nearby, shelter from the elements, safety from predators, territorial defense, and protection of offspring. We investigated the factors driving patterns of sleeping site use in wild Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta), a cooperatively breeding, territorial mongoose species that forages on scattered resources and makes use of multiple sleeping sites (burrows). We found that meerkat groups used some burrows much more often than others. In particular, large burrows near the center of the territory were used more often than small and peripheral burrows, and groups became even more biased toward central burrows when rearing pups. Meerkats also used their sleeping burrows in a nonrandom order. When they changed sleeping burrows, they moved disproportionately to nearby burrows but did not always select the closest burrow. Burrow decisions also reflected responses to short-term conditions: rates of switching burrows increased after encounters with predators and when resources were depleted, whereas group splits were associated with a reduced probability of switching. The group’s dominant female appeared to have disproportionate influence over burrow decisions, as groups were more likely to switch burrows when her foraging success was low. Our results link behavioral and movement ecology to show that a multitude of environmental and social factors shape daily group decisions of where to spend the night.

中文翻译：

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猫鼬群中的洞穴使用模式和决策

选择合适的睡眠地点是各种类群动物面临的共同挑战，对个人、群体和最终种群的空间使用模式具有重要意义。一系列因素可能会影响这些决定，包括获取附近资源、躲避自然灾害、免受掠食者侵害、领土防御和后代保护。我们调查了野生喀拉哈里猫鼬 (Suricata suricatta) 睡眠场所使用模式的驱动因素，这是一种合作繁殖的领土猫鼬物种，在分散的资源上觅食并利用多个睡眠场所（洞穴）。我们发现猫鼬群体比其他群体更频繁地使用某些洞穴。尤其是靠近领地中心的大洞穴比小而外围的洞穴更常被使用，在饲养幼崽时，群体变得更加偏向于中央洞穴。猫鼬也以非随机的顺序使用它们睡觉的洞穴。当他们改变睡眠洞穴时，他们不成比例地移动到附近的洞穴，但并不总是选择最近的洞穴。洞穴决定还反映了对短期条件的反应：在遇到捕食者和资源耗尽后，转换洞穴的速度增加，而群体分裂与转换概率降低有关。该群体的占主导地位的雌性似乎对洞穴决定有不成比例的影响，因为当她的觅食成功率较低时，群体更有可能转换洞穴。