Abstract For group-living animals, behavioral synchronization might represent a strategy to increase survival in varying environments. However, synchronization patterns and the driving factors remain largely unknown, particularly for species living in harsh conditions, such as waterbirds in winter. From October 2023 to March 2024, we recorded videos of foraging flocks of Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus) in grassland, mudflat, and shallow water habitats at Shengjin Lake, China, and quantified behavioral synchronization through two metrics: time synchronization rate (TSR, the proportion of time spent in synchronized states) and behavioral transition synchronization rate (BTSR, the proportion of synchronized behavioral transitions). Generalized linear mixed models were used to assess the effects of spatial position within flocks, time of year, and habitat. Within flocks, swans that were close to one another showed significantly higher TSR and BTSR than those further apart. TSR but not BTSR significantly decreased over winter. Habitat type influenced BTSR, with less synchronization in shallow water habitats than in grasslands and mudflats. In addition, the negative impact of inter-individual distances was more pronounced in the shallow water habitat. The findings support the idea that synchronization is the result of copying the behavior of close neighbors. Furthermore, environmental factors like time of year and habitat type can also modulate synchronization. These findings enhance our understanding of the adaptive role of behavioral synchronization in Tundra Swans inhabiting dynamic wetland habitats.
Lu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.