Dominance and Affiliation Mediate Despotism in a Social Primate

This work on baboons concerned the emergence of leadership behaviour in heterogeneous social groups characterised by conflicts of interests. I showed that group foraging decisions in baboons can be directed by a single alpha-male leader even when the costs tofollowing for the rest of the group are relatively high, and that this follower behaviour was driven by social ties to the leader. This work contradicted recent theoretically inspired models that suggest democratic and ‘shared’ decision-making should be the norm in animal societies, and shifted emphasis to exploring how variations in the interactions between individuals within groups can mediate collective decisions. It has since been cited 65 times (source: Google Scholar, Dec 2012)