Intra and Intergroup Patterns of Relatedness and Space Use in the Cooperative and Promiscuous Breeding Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris).

Intra and Intergroup Patterns of Relatedness and Space Use in the Cooperative and Promiscuous Breeding Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris). PDF Author: Rebecca Lem
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Group living is an important life-history tactic for many species and provides several benefits, such as predation protection and cooperative breeding, but can also incur costs. When groups become large, these costs can increase and can be detrimental to the reproductive success of gregarious females. Kin selection is one mechanism that may offset group costs. Hypotheses on the evolution of cooperative breeding predict these groups to be monogamous to maintain high relatedness within their family groups. In the case of promiscuous cooperative breeding species, relatedness may be highly variable both within and among groups, but little is known about if and how kin selection functions in these groups. Cape ground squirrels (Xerus inauris) are a cooperative breeding species with a promiscuous breeding system. Our objective was to first characterize the importance of kin selection within groups by examining relatedness within Cape ground squirrel family groups if kin bias was important during foraging away from safety, and if kin selection was an important factor when Cape ground squirrel females dispersed from their family group. Secondly, we characterized relatedness patterns among family groups across a landscape and determined if there was a kin bias or benefit to the sharing of spatial resources among family groups. We collected observational data on 15 different squirrel family groups in central South Africa. Results indicate that promiscuity influenced relatedness and group size, and that, over time, relatedness declined for males but not for females in a group. When females left their group, they usually did so with their offspring. When foraging, females did not show a spatial bias towards kin. Across a landscape, relatedness decreased with increasing distance, but we did not find that Cape ground squirrels showed a bias in spatial resources between kin, or that spatial resources contributed to reproductive success or survival of females. Overall, female Cape ground squirrels optimized direct fitness benefits when dispersing from their family groups, and overt kin biases were not apparent during foraging. Our study is important in understanding the evolution of cooperative breeding in a promiscuous species with a unique, tolerant, and non-aggressive social system.

Intra and Intergroup Patterns of Relatedness and Space Use in the Cooperative and Promiscuous Breeding Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris).

Intra and Intergroup Patterns of Relatedness and Space Use in the Cooperative and Promiscuous Breeding Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris). PDF Author: Rebecca Lem
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Group living is an important life-history tactic for many species and provides several benefits, such as predation protection and cooperative breeding, but can also incur costs. When groups become large, these costs can increase and can be detrimental to the reproductive success of gregarious females. Kin selection is one mechanism that may offset group costs. Hypotheses on the evolution of cooperative breeding predict these groups to be monogamous to maintain high relatedness within their family groups. In the case of promiscuous cooperative breeding species, relatedness may be highly variable both within and among groups, but little is known about if and how kin selection functions in these groups. Cape ground squirrels (Xerus inauris) are a cooperative breeding species with a promiscuous breeding system. Our objective was to first characterize the importance of kin selection within groups by examining relatedness within Cape ground squirrel family groups if kin bias was important during foraging away from safety, and if kin selection was an important factor when Cape ground squirrel females dispersed from their family group. Secondly, we characterized relatedness patterns among family groups across a landscape and determined if there was a kin bias or benefit to the sharing of spatial resources among family groups. We collected observational data on 15 different squirrel family groups in central South Africa. Results indicate that promiscuity influenced relatedness and group size, and that, over time, relatedness declined for males but not for females in a group. When females left their group, they usually did so with their offspring. When foraging, females did not show a spatial bias towards kin. Across a landscape, relatedness decreased with increasing distance, but we did not find that Cape ground squirrels showed a bias in spatial resources between kin, or that spatial resources contributed to reproductive success or survival of females. Overall, female Cape ground squirrels optimized direct fitness benefits when dispersing from their family groups, and overt kin biases were not apparent during foraging. Our study is important in understanding the evolution of cooperative breeding in a promiscuous species with a unique, tolerant, and non-aggressive social system.

Kinship, Ectoparasites, and Reproductive Success in Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris) Social Networks

Kinship, Ectoparasites, and Reproductive Success in Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris) Social Networks PDF Author: Philip Shimel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Sociality - or living in groups among members of the same species - can have both costs and benefits for survival and reproductive success. Inclusive fitness theory suggests organisms might behaviourally favour closer kin if they can identify and act to benefit them. In promiscuous social species, average relatedness may be too low to maintain costly social behaviours like cooperative breeding without kin discrimination. Animals that are more central in social networks may gain fitness benefits and costs similar to those of sociality generally, but particularly those effects that arise from indirect social connections. Increased social network centrality is often linked to improved fitness, but also greater ectoparasite abundance. Exploring whether fitness correlates to social network position under low rates of aggression or hierarchy remains a key challenge for comparative evolutionary ecology. Cape ground squirrels (Xerus inauris) are facultatively cooperative breeders with high promiscuity. They are a social species that rarely exhibit aggressive behaviours towards conspecifics and show no evidence of dominance hierarchies. A previous study that removed their parasites dramatically increased female reproductive success. Our objective was to examine whether kinship influences social structure and whether ectoparasite abundance and centrality influence survival and reproductive success in adult female Cape ground squirrels. We predicted kinship increases affiliative and decreases agonistic interactions, that centrality increases ectoparasites, and that ectoparasites and centrality reduce reproductive success but not survival. We studied Cape ground squirrels on S.A. Lombard Nature Reserve, South Africa in 2017. We followed 14 social groups, collected interaction data through all-occurrence sampling, and collected ectoparasite abundance data from trapping. We found that kinship increased both affiliative and agonistic interactions. Since agonistic interactions are relatively mild in this species, greater agonistic interaction frequencies with closer kin may have insignificant fitness costs. More central adult females had more ectoparasites, but eigenvector centrality and ectoparasite abundance did not affect survival or reproductive success. Our study shows that Cape ground squirrels are nepotistic with their interactions within their social groups, and that the costs and benefits of group living in species with low rates of aggression can have novel implications for the relationships between fitness and sociality.

The Social Organization of the Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris)

The Social Organization of the Cape Ground Squirrel (Xerus Inauris) PDF Author: Jane Margaret Waterman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Animal societies
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description


Infanticide by Males and Its Implications

Infanticide by Males and Its Implications PDF Author: Carel van Schaik
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521774987
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description
Analysis of impact of infanticide on social organization and reproductive behavior in primates including humans.

In Quest of the Sacred Baboon

In Quest of the Sacred Baboon PDF Author: Hans Kummer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691048383
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
the deserts of Ethiopia, Kummer recreates the adventure and intellectual thrill of the early days of field research on primates. Just as Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey introduced readers to the fascinating lives of chimpanzees and gorillas, Kummer brings readers face to face with the Hamadryas baboon. Photos.

Alliance and Conflict

Alliance and Conflict PDF Author: Ernest S. Burch
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803213463
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Alliance and Conflict combines a richly descriptive study of intersocietal relations in early nineteenth-century Northwest Alaska with a bold theoretical treatise on the structure of the world system as it might have been in ancient times. Ernest S. Burch Jr. illuminates one aspect of the traditional lives of the I_upiaq Eskimos in unparalleled detail and depth. Basing his account on observations made by early Western explorers, interviews with Native historians, and archeological research, Burch describes the social boundaries and geographic borders formerly existing in Northwest Alaska and the various kinds of transactions that took place across them. These ranged from violence of the most brutal sort, at one extreme, to relations of peace and friendship, at the other. Burch argues that the international system he describes approximated in many respects the type of system existing all over the world before the development of agriculture. Based on that assumption, he presents a series of hypotheses about what the world system may have been like when it consisted entirely of hunter-gatherer societies and about how it became more centralized with the evolution of chiefdoms. ø Accounts of specific people, places, and events add an immediate, experiential dimension to the work, complementing its theoretical apparatus and sweeping narrative scope. Provocative and comprehensive, Alliance and Conflict is a definitive look at the greater world of Native peoples of Northwest Alaska.

Current Perspectives on Sexual Selection

Current Perspectives on Sexual Selection PDF Author: Thierry Hoquet
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401795851
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
This root-and-branch re-evaluation of Darwin’s concept of sexual selection tackles the subject from historical, epistemological and theoretical perspectives. Contributions from a wealth of disciplines have been marshaled for this volume, with key figures in behavioural ecology, philosophy, and the history of science adding to its wide-ranging relevance. Updating the reader on the debate currently live in behavioural ecology itself on the centrality of sexual selection, and with coverage of developments in the field of animal aesthetics, the book details the current state of play, while other chapters trace the history of sexual selection from Darwin to today and inquire into the neurobiological bases for partner choices and the comparisons between the hedonic brain in human and non-human animals. Welcome space is given to the social aspects of sexual selection, particularly where Darwin drew distinctions between eager males and coy females and rationalized this as evolutionary strategy. Also explored are the current definition of sexual selection (as opposed to natural selection) and its importance in today’s biological research, and the impending critique of the theory from the nascent field of animal aesthetics. As a comprehensive assessment of the current health, or otherwise, of Darwin’s theory, 140 years after the publication of his Descent of Man, the book offers a uniquely rounded view that asks whether ‘sexual selection’ is in itself a progressive or reactionary notion, even as it explores its theoretical relevance in the technical biological study of the twenty-first century.

Rodent Societies

Rodent Societies PDF Author: Jerry O. Wolff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226905381
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 627

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Book Description
Rodent Societies synthesizes and integrates the current state of knowledge about the social behavior of rodents, providing ecological and evolutionary contexts for understanding their societies and highlighting emerging conservation and management strategies to preserve them. It begins with a summary of the evolution, phylogeny, and biogeography of social and nonsocial rodents, providing a historical basis for comparative analyses. Subsequent sections focus on group-living rodents and characterize their reproductive behaviors, life histories and population ecology, genetics, neuroendocrine mechanisms, behavioral development, cognitive processes, communication mechanisms, cooperative and uncooperative behaviors, antipredator strategies, comparative socioecology, diseases, and conservation. Using the highly diverse and well-studied Rodentia as model systems to integrate a variety of research approaches and evolutionary theory into a unifying framework, Rodent Societies will appeal to a wide range of disciplines, both as a compendium of current research and as a stimulus for future collaborative and interdisciplinary investigations.

The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans

The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans PDF Author: Todd K. Shackelford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199908303
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Sexual conflict -- what happens when the reproductive interests of males and females diverge -- occurs in all sexually reproducing species, including humans. The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans is the first volume to assemble the latest theoretical and empirical work on sexual conflict in humans from the leading scholars in the fields of evolutionary psychology and anthropology. Following an introductory section that outlines theory and research on sexual conflict in humans and non-humans, ensuing sections discuss human sexual conflict and its manifestations before and during mating. Chapters in these sections address a range of factors topics and factors, including: - Sexual coercion, jealousy, and partner violence and killing - The ovulatory cycle, female orgasm, and sperm competition - Chemical warfare between ejaculates and female reproductive tracts Chapters in the next section address issues of sexual conflict after the birth of a child. These chapters address sexual conflict as a function of the local sex ratio, men's functional (if unconscious) concern with paternal resemblance to a child, men's reluctance to pay child support, and mate expulsion as a tactic to end a relationship. The handbook's concluding section includes a chapter that considers the impact of sexual conflict on a grander scale, notably on cultural, political, and religious systems. Addressing sexual conflict at its molecular and macroscopic levels, The Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans is a fascinating resource for the study of intersexual behavior.

Primate Societies

Primate Societies PDF Author: Hans Kummer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351496662
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
In this book, Hans Kummer, one of the world's leading primate ethologists, examines the patterns of social interaction among primates. He examines this social behavior from the fundamentally biological viewpoint of evolutionary adaptation as part of the survival mechanisms for the species. Recognizing that all activity is constituted in part of genetic programming and in part of adaptive behavior, he explores the borderline area between the genetic and the "cultural." By use of astute observation and clever experimentation he shows that many aspects of social behavior are inherited, and differentially inherited among various primate groups. These data also show, however, that the individuals and troops learn much in primate social life and that these forms are responsive to particular ecological situations. Drawing heavily on knowledge gleaned from his own well-known studies of the Hamadryas baboon, Dr. Kummer introduces the reader to the daily life of a particular primate society. From this sample case, he proceeds to a more general characterization of primate societies, using as examples the great apes and monkeys of Africa, Asia, and South America and particularly the widely studied terrestrial monkey species. The particularities of primate communication, social structure, and economy are described and special attention is devoted to the primate counterparts of kinship and age groups-behavioral differences based on age and sex, and mating and grouping systems. This is followed by a chapter dealing with the ecological functions of the major parameters of primate social life, such as group size and the coordination of activities within it-dominance, leadership systems, and spatial arrangements. The second part of the book is concerned with the origins of behavioral traits of primates, discussed from phylogenetic, ecological, and cultural points of view, again using data-based examples. Dr. Kummer explains why some traits have not evolved that would have been ada