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Relationship between dominance hierarchy steepness and rank-relatedness of benefits in primates

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posted on 2024-08-28, 10:42 authored by Pengzhen Huang, Malgorzata E Arlet, Krishna N Balasubramaniam, Brianne A Beisner, Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Lauren JN Brent, Julie Duboscq, Iván García-Nisa, Stefano SK Kaburu, Rachel Kendal, Martina Konečná, Pascal R Marty, Brenda McCowan, Jérôme Micheletta, Julia Ostner, Oliver Schülke, Gabriele Schino, Bonaventura Majolo
Abstract In animal social groups, the extent to which individuals consistently win agonistic interactions and their ability to monopolize resources represent two core aspects of their competitive regime. However, whether these two aspects are closely correlated within groups has rarely been studied. Here, we tested the hypothesis that hierarchy steepness, which is generally used to represent power differentials between group members, predicts the variation in the distribution of fitness-related benefits (i.e., fecundity, infant survival, mating success and feeding success) in relation to individual dominance ranks. We tested this hypothesis in primate groups using comparative phylogenetic meta-analytical techniques. Specifically, we reviewed published and unpublished studies to extract data on individual dominance ranks, their access to fitness-related benefits and hierarchy steepness. We collected and included in our analysis a total of 153 data points, representing 27 species (including two chimpanzee sub-species). From these, we used four common methods to measure individual dominance ranks and hierarchy steepness, i.e., Dij-based normalized David's scores, randomized Elo-ratings, and David's scores and Elo-ratings estimated in Bayesian frameworks. We found that hierarchy steepness had no effect on the strength of the relationship between dominance rank and access to fitness-related benefits. Our results suggest that hierarchy steepness does not reflect between-group variation in the extent to which individual dominance affects the acquisition of fitness-related benefits in primates. Although the ability to win agonistic encounters is essential, we speculate that other behavioral strategies adopted by individuals may play crucial roles in resource acquisition in animal competitive regimes.

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Refereed

  • Yes

Volume

35

Issue number

5

Publication title

Behavioral Ecology

ISSN

1045-2249

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

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  • Published version

Language

  • eng

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