A multidisciplinary team led by researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh has found that wild red deer become less sociable with age. As female deer grow older, they begin to interact with fewer other individuals within their home ranges. ‘This new evidence of social ageing in the wild shows the value of long-term datasets. The research also highlights that further work is now needed to understand exactly why ageing deer become less social. The full paper, ‘Ageing red deer alter their spatial behaviour and become less social,’ is available in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
