Female Dominance Does Not Characterize All of the Lemuridae

Pereira, Michael E.; Kaufman, Ruben; Kappeler, Peter M.; Overdorff, Deborah J.

doi:10.1159/000156505

Cited by 168 publications

(160 citation statements)

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“…Female dominance, in particular, has stirred a heated debate in the primate literature. Some primatologists follow a classic ethological approach by defining dominance in terms of the outcomes of agonistic encounters (e.g., Pereira et al 1990). Others (e.g., Jolly 1984) contend that female dominance is essentially different from male dominance because it concerns priority of access to resources.…”

Section: Clarifying Dominance With the Concept Of Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Dominance: The Importance of Leverage

Lewis

2002

The Quarterly Review of Biology

102

101

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Section: Clarifying Dominance With the Concept Of Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Dominance: The Importance of Leverage

Lewis

2002

The Quarterly Review of Biology

102

101

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“…The spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) is the only other mammalian species in which adult females generally dominate males (Kruuk 1972;Tilson & Hamilton 1984;Frank 1996), but natal males dominate at least some females of lower ranking matrilines (Frank 1986;Frank et al 1989;Smale et al 1993). Female dominance is coupled with a lack of sexual size dimorphism in both lemurs and spotted hyenas (Hamilton et al 1986;Kappeler 1990) and more or less pronounced masculinization of the female genitals (Matthews 1939;Petter-Rousseaux 1962).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Androgen levels and female social dominance inLemur catta

Engelhard

Kappeler

Heistermann

2000

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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Morphological and behavioural traits which improve agonistic power are subject to intrasexual selection and, at the proximate level, are in£uenced by circulating androgens. Because intrasexual selection in mammals is more intense among males, they typically dominate females. Female social dominance is therefore unexpected and, indeed, rare. Ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) are sexually monomorphic primates in which all adult females dominate all males. The goal of our study was to test the prediction that female dominance in this species is associated with high androgen levels. Using two captive groups, we collected data on agonistic behaviour and non-invasively assessed their androgen concentrations in faeces and saliva by enzyme immunoassay. We found that adult female L. catta do not have higher androgen levels than males. However, during the mating season there was a twofold increase in both the androgen levels and con£ict rates among females. This seasonal increase in their androgen levels was probably not due to a general increase in ovarian hormone production because those females showing the strongest signs of follicular development tended to have low androgen concentrations. At the individual level neither the individual aggression rates nor the proportion of same-sexed individuals dominated were correlated with their androgen levels. We conclude that female dominance in ring-tailed lemurs is neither based on physical superiority nor on high androgen levels and that it is equally important to study male subordination and prenatal brain priming e¡ects for a complete understanding of this phenomenon.

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“…Dominance rank is defined as the ability of one individual to consistently evoke submissive behavior in all individuals within the same unit. Such social relationships are useful to describe social organizations [3] and to estimate an individual's priority access to resources [4]. Currently, dominance rank is regarded as a self-regulatory mechanism to reduce competition, and to sustain social affinity and organization stability because all individuals know their own social status in the given social network [5].…”

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confidence: 99%