Natural knock-out: changes in female social networks as a consequence of mortality in female chacma baboons

Previous work on captive pig-tail macaques illustrated the importance of particular individuals to the stability of social networks within a group by using 'knock-out' experiments, where key individuals were removed from the the group and the social consequences monitored. Here we use data from 'natural knock-out' experiments, caused by the sudden (over-night) death of particular individuals in a wild troop of South African chaema Baboons to investigate the consequences for social network structure.