As food becomes scarce, Asian (female) elephant friendships fall apart in Sri Lanka

Amazing stuff, but the study is not quite convincing!

Keep in mind: The study is limited to only one area, i.e. the Udawalawe National Park in Sri Lanka.

Some questions:

1. Why were only female elephants tracked and investigated? What about male elephants?
2. Why is a comparison with elephants in India is missing? Only one sentence in the article mentions India.
3. What influence may have had the severe civil war with over 100,000 people killed? "many parks were off-limits because of the civil war fought in the country from 1983 to 2009". This omission by the authors is surprising given "So, in 2006, [Shermin de Silva] began to study a population in Sri Lanka’s Udawalawe National Park, working with staff to identify individual elephants by the distinctive shapes and marks on each elephant’s ears."

"... The risk of isolation for that population of elephants appears to be rising. A new study ... describes a social breakdown among Asian elephants as food has become less plentiful.

Unlike elephants in Africa, those in the Sri Lankan park have not responded to stress by forming larger groups. Instead, when the population began to shrink because of food scarcity, the elephants suddenly fractured into smaller groups. ..."

"Key Takeaways

• UC San Diego researchers studied the social dynamics of hundreds of Asian elephants over more than a decade in Sri Lanka.
• They tracked a decrease in the population of the highly social animals that has led to fractured and more isolated communities.
• Surpassing a social “tipping point,” they warn, can be detrimental to the future of the animals.

..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Community is essential to social animals. Connections among individuals provide support, protection, and resilience to challenge for individuals within connected groups. Loss of individuals within groups can sometimes be absorbed due to connections among remaining individuals, but continued loss can challenge the relationships of those who remain. Madsen et al. looked at social connections among female Asian elephants over more than a decade using network theory and found that there was a threshold of loss above which there was restructuring of the entire community, generally leading to smaller and more isolated groups likely to be less resilient to threat ...

Abstract

Humans and many other animals live in interconnected social communities that are essential for survival and well-being. In principle, communities can persist despite changes in constituent members. However, gradually accumulating changes to membership could push systems past critical thresholds into alternate states, restructuring patterns of connectivity. Such changes can further affect systemic resilience against disturbance.

We investigated social network dynamics for 443 wild female Asian elephants over 12 years by tracking community membership and structure. Following accumulated demographic turnover, networks fractured into smaller and more isolated communities.

Connections changed not only owing to loss of members but also modifications in relationships among remaining individuals.

This provides empirical evidence of a persistent state change in the social network of a long-lived terrestrial mammal following gradually accumulating demographic turnover."

As food becomes scarce, Asian elephant friendships fall apart | Science | AAAS "Social breakdown poses long-term risks to the population"

Elephants Found to be Increasingly Isolated, Leading to Fractured Social Networks (original news release) "With a troubling decline in the population, researchers warn of a tipping point for the highly social animals"

Increased demographic turnover and isolation precede social fragmentation in Asian elephants (open access)