What are the benefits and negatives of animals living in a group? Is there a limit to a group (if food wasn’t an issue)

Question: What are the benefits and negatives of animals living in a group? Is there a limit to a group (if food wasn't an issue) of animals? How do animals gain importance/authority within their pack?
- Keywords:
  group,
  limit,
  social
Asked by wewantcedric6 to Carrie, Ellen, Rupert on 17 Mar 2017.
- Carrie Ijichi answered on 17 Mar 2017:
  
  One benefit is that you can make much larger kills and your success rate on a hunt is much higher if you work in a team. Obviously though you’ve got to share what you kill. Animals also get protection from living in groups – most prey species like horses will get very stressed if they’re on their own because they feel vulnerable. Animal can also share the care and protection of young if they live in groups – for example lions and wolves will have many adults caring for young instead of just the parents.
  
  When foods not an issue they can reach enormous sizes but the species has to be really social to tolerate the stress of so many other individuals close by.
  
  Actually, gaining and keeping authority isn’t very important to most animals. That’s a really human thing. Most animals live in very peaceful groups where more time is spent maintaining relationships through affecting rather than altering them through aggession
- Ellen Williams answered on 17 Mar 2017:
  
  There are a few pros and cons to living in groups. Benefits include cooperative care (so others to help them look after their offspring), ability to gather food, more eyes to look out for predators. Disadvantages include the increased risk of disease transmission, increased competition for food and increased competition for mates. It is hard to say whether there would be a limit to group size because there are driving factors other than food which predict group size. How they gain authority is really species dependent – some species will fight for position and the alpha male (or female) will win – like wolves, chimps, gorillas. In other species the role is passed down – as we see in elephants – where there isn’t really a tussling for top position. Hierarchy can be very important for some group living animals and less important for others – some have really strict social hierarchies whereas others may be more fluid. All depends on the species and sometimes even the individual social group 🙂

Question: What are the benefits and negatives of animals living in a group? Is there a limit to a group (if food wasn't an issue) of animals? How do animals gain importance/authority within their pack?