Gabriel Ramos-Fernandez

bsky.app/profile/grf....

A pleasure to chat with Matt Galloway in The Current, earlier this morniing, about our recently published paper on spider monkeys' collective intelligence www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

Social integration in temporal multiplex association networks predicts offspring survival in female geoffroy’s spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology - While sociality is considered an important factor influencing female reproductive success, it is unclear how temporal social dynamics relate to it. We address...

I'm really happy to share this paper showing a relationship between social integration and offspring survival in female spider monkeys. I was lucky to work on this with Cristina Jasso, @grf.bsky.social and a great group of collaborators.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Spider monkeys use collective intelligence to find food Spider monkeys share food knowledge by changing groups, helping everyone find fruit faster in forests across seasons and landscapes.

Spider monkeys use collective intelligence to find food: www.earth.com/news/spider-...

Spider monkeys found to share ‘insider knowledge’ to help locate best food Researchers observed the primates switching social groups and passing information on where to find the ripest fruit

Impressive research and impressive spider monkeys!

#primates #cognition #information #network #sharing

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jan/25/spider-monkeys-found-to-share-insider-knowledge-to-help-locate-best-food?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

Spider monkeys crowdsource best places to eat in forest www.hw.ac.uk/news/2026/sp...

npj Complex.: Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44260-025-00060-0

YouTube video by Global Research Centre for Diverse Intelligences Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging

🐒🧠 New paper in npj Complexity: complementary information sharing in fission-fusion dynamics.

Video explainer: youtu.be/PIAhcLWqsO8?...

Full paper (open access): doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Higher-order spatial networks enable distributed foraging knowledge in heterogeneous environments.

👇

Fission-fusion dynamics implies distributed information processing analogous to that occurring in "liquid brains."

Collective intelligence through complementary knowledge sharing! 🧠✨

Collaborators:Ross S. Walker, @mattjsilk.bsky.social, Denis Boyer and @sandrateles-esmag.bsky.social

Maximal simplicial degree centrality shows sigmoidal scaling with simplex size: intermediate-sized simplices (4-6 individuals) are most central to the network.

Centrality is independent of age, sex, or immigration status → knowledge asymmetry driven by mobility, not individual traits.

These holes persist across multiple filtration values, indicating robust complementarity.

Even when including less redundant interactions, spatial overlaps don't form trivial structures - unique knowledge pockets remain across various subset sizes.

Persistence barcodes for the simplicial complexes in each season, including the simplices of individual core ranges formed by decreasingly redundant interactions.

We constructed filtered simplicial complexes using α as a filtration parameter (scaled by deviation from w*).

Persistent homology reveals topological holes, which we interpret as structural signatures of complementary information distribution 🕸️

Scaling relationship between the number of individual core ranges and its intersection/union ratio, w. Each dot corresponds to a particular set of a given number of individuals. The solid black line corresponds to the scaling relationship.

We found that in some cases, the observed w values closely follow the predicted convex decreasing function of set size n.

Smaller sets (2-6 individuals) show higher variance, suggesting this range is most dynamic for knowledge complementarity.

Conceptual illustration of the degree of redundancy and uniqueness shown by four hypothetical overlapping individual core ranges.

We derived an optimal intersection/union ratio (w*) that maximizes information transfer between n individuals:

w* = 1/(n+1)

This balances redundant overlap (coincidence opportunities) with unique knowledge (areas known exclusively by subsets).

Two sets of overlapping core ranges showing both redundant and unique areas

We estimated individual core ranges (60% utilization distributions) from 6 years of location data in Yucatan, Mexico.

We assumed that these core ranges represent an individual's spatial knowledge for a given season, while partial overlaps create opportunities for information transfer.

Spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) exhibit high fission-fusion dynamics - individuals form subgroups that join and split frequently.

We asked whether distributed spatial knowledge across individuals enabled collective processing of foraging information beyond individual capacity.

YouTube video by Global Research Centre for Diverse Intelligences Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging

🐒🧠 New paper in npj Complexity: complementary information sharing in fission-fusion dynamics.

Video explainer: youtu.be/PIAhcLWqsO8?...

Full paper (open access): doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Higher-order spatial networks enable distributed foraging knowledge in heterogeneous environments.

👇

Thrilled to see this paper out, two years after starting our collaboration at @divintelligence.bsky.social

Jane Goodall with the rest of participants at the Animal Social Complexity and Intelligence conference, Chicago, 2000

Always uniquely funny and inspiring. Here at one of the first conferences I attended as a grad student, the Animal Social Complexity and Intelligence conference in Chicago, in 2000. Thank you Jane Goodall.

bsky.app/profile/grf....

Baboons walk in line for friendship, not survival, new study finds Researchers at Swansea University have discovered that baboons walk in lines, not for safety or strategy, but simply to stay close to their friends.

New paper in @behavecol.bsky.social (link: academic.oup.com/beheco/advan...)
led by PhD student @marcofele.bsky.social using hard-won data from our amazing baboon team. Our @swanseauni.bsky.social press release:
www.swansea.ac.uk/press-office...
We introduce the idea of a "social spandrel".....

Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks Collectives are often able to process information in a distributed fashion, surpassing each individual member's processing capacity. In fission-fusion dynamics, where group members come together and s...

Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks arxiv.org/abs/2505.01167

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combined knowledge has complementarity: each individual fills in parts of the puzzle that others miss. We argue that the ever-changing structure of these groups helps them collectively adapt and make the most of their shared knowledge in unpredictable environments.

🐒 🧩 🐒 = 🧠

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to share key information, but also enough unique knowledge to cover more ground. To model these interactions, we used a mathematical approach (simplicial complexes) that captures how multiple animals exchange information at once. This revealed 'gaps' in different dimensions—meaning the group’s…

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track changes in their environment better than any individual could on its own. We studied how much individual animals' core ranges overlap, treating these overlaps as a way to measure shared vs. unique knowledge of food sources. Some range combinations strike a balance: they have enough overlap

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Groups can often process information together more effectively than any single member could alone. In species with fission-fusion dynamics—where animals frequently split up and reunite (like dolphins or chimpanzees)—sharing different bits of knowledge about food locations helps the whole group…

Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks Collectives are often able to process information in a distributed fashion, surpassing each individual member's processing capacity. In fission-fusion dynamics, where group members come together and s...

🧪New preprint: “Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks” in collaboration with Ross Walker, @mattjsilk.bsky.social, Denis Boyer and @sandrateles-esmag.bsky.social
arxiv.org/abs/2505.01167
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Preprint: The causal role of synergy in collective problem solving. Great collaboration with DISI fellows @ketikagarg.bsky.social @culturologies.co, Zara Anwarzai and Hannah Dromiack

With colleagues from our social complexity seminar, we joined the debate in BBS on "What is a society" by M. Moffett. We argue that a society can emerge from social interaction patterns without the need for establishing an a priori limit on who actually belongs to it doi.org/10.1017/S014...

“Everything is political, especially the things that people tell you are not political. Those are the most political of all”