As a socially well-connected and cohesive species, humans tend to make many collective decisions. How do nonhuman species collectively relay information? We present data on the leadership of collective movements in Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) in Mt. Huangshan, China, by analyzing their movements in relation to their social networks. All-occurrence sampling was used to investigate collective movement patterns, and focal and scan sampling were used to retrieve information on their affiliative and agonistic behaviors for a complete social network analysis. There were a total of 128 successful collective movements recorded over a two month period. All 20 adult individuals participated in collective movement leadership. There was no significant effect of sex, age, or rank on the leadership frequency of adult troop members. However, the highest-ranking female (YH) and a young female (TXX) significantly led more collective movements than expected by chance. The strength and eigenvector centrality of affiliative and agonistic social networks were significantly correlated with collective movement. Both females belong to different clusters in the social network analysis of collective movement, meaning that certain individuals tend to move with one female or the other. Individuals belonging to these two clusters may be a consequence of the mating season. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests. Supported by NSFC (30970414 & 31172106) and NSF-OISE (1065589)
