Integrated community models—an emerging framework in which multiple data sources for multiple species are analyzed simultaneously—offer opportunities to expand inferences beyond the single‐species and single‐data‐source approaches common in ecology. We developed a novel integrated community model that combines distance sampling and single‐visit count data; within the model, information is shared among data sources (via a joint...

Fission–fusion dynamics describe the tendency for members of some animal societies to associate in subgroups that change size and structure fluidly over time. These dynamics shape social complexity and social structure, but are difficult to study because they unfold simultaneously over large spatial scales. Here we use simultaneous, fine-scale GPS data from spotted hyenas to examine fission–fusion dynamics through a dyadic ana...

Aim Comprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal spec...

Integrated models combine multiple data types within a unified analysis to estimate species abundance and covariate effects. By sharing biological parameters, integrated models improve the accuracy and precision of estimates compared to separate analyses of individual data sets. We developed an integrated point process model to combine presence‐only and distance sampling data for estimation of spatially explicit abundance patt...

Environmental factors early in life can have lasting influence on the development and phenotypes of animals, but the underlying molecular modifications remain poorly understood. We examined cross‐sectional associations among early life socioecological factors and global DNA methylation in 293 wild spotted hyenas ( Crocuta crocuta ) in the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, grouped according to three age classes (cub, subadult...

Social structure influences ecological processes such as dispersal and invasion, and affects survival and reproductive success. Recent studies have used static snapshots of social networks, thus neglecting their temporal dynamics, and focused primarily on a limited number of variables that might be affecting social structure. Here, instead we modelled effects of multiple predictors of social network dynamics in the spotted hye...

Spotted hyenas ( Crocuta crocuta ) are large mammalian carnivores, but their societies, called ‘clans’, resemble those of such cercopithecine primates as baboons and macaques with respect to their size, hierarchical structure, and frequency of social interaction among both kin and unrelated group‐mates. However, in contrast to cercopithecine primates, spotted hyenas regularly hunt antelope and compete with group‐mates for acce...

Spotted hyenas ( Crocuta crocuta ) are gregarious carnivores that live in multigenerational social groups, called clans, containing one to several matrilines. Members of multiple matrilines within a clan cooperate during dangerous interactions with inter‐ and intraspecific competitors. The evolution of cooperation may be influenced by relatedness between individuals, which in turn is influenced by reproductive skew and mate ch...