Data from: Within- and between-group dynamics in an obligate cooperative breeder

1. Cooperative behaviour can have profound effects on demography. In many cooperative species, components of fitness (e.g. survival, reproductive success) are diminished in smaller social groups. These effects (termed group-level component Allee effects) may lead smaller groups to grow relatively slowly or fail to persist (termed group-level demographic Allee effects). 2. If these group-level effects were to propagate to the population level, small populations would grow slowly or decline to extinction (termed population-level demographic Allee effects). However, empirical studies have revealed little evidence of such population-level effects. 3. Theoretical studies suggest that dispersal behaviour could either cause or prevent the propagation of group-level Allee effects to the population level. We therefore characterised within-and between-pack dynamics in a population of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) to test these contrasting model predictions. 4. Larger wild dog packs produced more pups and their members experienced higher survival than those in smaller packs. Nevertheless, larger packs grew more slowly than smaller packs, because natal adults dispersed away from them. Most packs either died out in whole-pack death events, or broke up when their founders died, irrespective of pack size. Overall, packs showed negative density dependence rather than group-level demographic Allee effects. 5. Larger packs produced more, but not larger, dispersal groups, and hence generated more, but not larger, new packs. Larger packs thus contributed more than smaller packs to the number of packs in the population, but their large size did not propagate to their daughter packs. This pattern helps to explain the absence of population-level Allee effects in this species. 6. Dispersal behaviour, itself driven by natural selection on individual reproductive strategies, played a pivotal role in population dynamics, leading to the formation of new packs and limiting the size of established packs. Understanding dispersal processes is likely to be important to understanding the population dynamics of other cooperatively breeding species. data for Figure 1AText file containing information on African wild dog pack size at different pack agesdata_for_figure_1A.txtdata_for_model_01Text file describing African wild dog pack structure in packs of different agesdata_for_model_02_03_04_05Text file describing litter size, per capita pup production, offspring equivalents per subdominant founder, and siblings produced per natal adult, for African wild dog packs of varying age and size.data_for_model_06Text file describing individual survival for African wild dogs living in packs of varying sizedata_for_model_07_08Text file describing individual dispersal probabilities for African wild dogs of different social status living in packs of varying sizedata_for_model_09Text file describing change in pack size between successive pack-years for African wild dog packs of varying sizedata_for_model_10_11Text file describing persistence through successive pack-years for African wild dog packs of varying sizedata_for_model_12_13_14Text file describing the sizes of dispersal groups, their origin packs, and the destination packs they formed.data_for_model_15Text file describing the number of dispersal groups produced per 365 days by African wild dog packs of varying sizedata_for_model_16Text file reporting the number of new daughter packs produced per 365 days by African wild dog packs of varying size