Matriarchs As Repositories of Social Knowledge in African Elephants

McComb, Karen; Moss, Cynthia J.; Durant, Sarah M.; Baker, Lucy; Sayialel, Soila

doi:10.1126/science.1057895

Cited by 532 publications

(456 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

447

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Associations are not random, and certain individuals act as hubs for the society. Older females are identified as hubs in bottlenose dolphins (Lusseau, 2003) and in African elephants (McComb et al, 2001). It seems that certain pigs are more "popular" than others (Durell et al, 2004), an observation which was also made for other domestic animals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs

Kun

Scheuring

2009

Biosystems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tThere are two key characteristic of animal and human societies: (1) degree heterogeneity, meaning that not all individual have the same number of associates; and (2) the interaction topology is not static, i.e. either individuals interact with different set of individuals at different times of their life, or at least they have different associations than their parents. Earlier works have shown that population structure is one of the mechanisms promoting cooperation. However, most studies had assumed that the interaction network can be described by a regular graph (homogeneous degree distribution). Recently there are an increasing number of studies employing degree heterogeneous graphs to model interaction topology. But mostly the interaction topology was assumed to be static. Here we investigate the fixation probability of the cooperator strategy in the prisoner's dilemma, when interaction network is a random regular graph, a random graph or a scale-free graph and the interaction network is allowed to change.We show that the fixation probability of the cooperator strategy is lower when the interaction topology is described by a dynamical graph compared to a static graph. Even a limited network dynamics significantly decreases the fixation probability of cooperation, an effect that is mitigated stronger by degree heterogeneous networks topology than by a degree homogeneous one. We have also found that from the considered graph topologies the decrease of fixation probabilities due to graph dynamics is the lowest on scale-free graphs.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs

Kun

Scheuring

2009

Biosystems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As in elephants [31], older females may therefore play a crucial role in the bats' social interactions.…”

Section: Results (A) Distribution Of Individual Roosting Associationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bats are able to maintain long-term social relationships despite the high fission–fusion dynamics of their groups

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Elephants, dolphins, as well as some carnivores and primates maintain social links despite their frequent splitting and merging in groups of variable composition, a phenomenon known as fission -fusion. Information on the dynamics of social links and interactions among individuals is of high importance to the understanding of the evolution of animal sociality, including that of humans. However, detailed longterm data on such dynamics in wild mammals with fully known demography and kin structures are scarce. Applying a weighted network analysis on 20 500 individual roosting observations over 5 years, we show that in two wild Bechstein's bat colonies with high fission -fusion dynamics, individuals of different age, size, reproductive status and relatedness maintain long-term social relationships. In the larger colony, we detected two stable subunits, each comprising bats from several family lineages. Links between these subunits were mainly maintained by older bats and persisted over all years. Moreover, we show that the full details of the social structure become apparent only when large datasets are used. The stable multi-level social structures in Bechstein's bat colonies resemble that of elephants, dolphins and some primates. Our findings thus may shed new light on the link between social complexity and social cognition in mammals.

show abstract

“…All three families chose between the same three skulls, with the skull that represented the matriarch for any one family representing a non-matriarch for the other two, and each family received the choice three times, with their own matriarch's skull in each of the three possible positions in the array (see electronic supplementary material). The matriarch is the oldest female in the family unit, and plays an important role in coordinating the group's activities (McComb et al 2001).…”

Section: (A) Study Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The research was conducted in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, where long-term data on life histories have been obtained for more than 2200 individual elephants (see McComb et al 2001). The primary social unit in African elephants is the female family unit, composed of adult females that are usually matrilineal relatives and their immature offspring (Moss & Poole 1983).…”

Section: (A) Study Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

African elephants show high levels of interest in the skulls and ivory of their own species

2005

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An important area of biology involves investigating the origins in animals of traits that are thought of as uniquely human. One way that humans appear unique is in the importance they attach to the dead bodies of other humans, particularly those of their close kin, and the rituals that they have developed for burying them. In contrast, most animals appear to show only limited interest in the carcasses or associated remains of dead individuals of their own species. African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are unusual in that they not only give dramatic reactions to the dead bodies of other elephants, but are also reported to systematically investigate elephant bones and tusks that they encounter, and it has sometimes been suggested that they visit the bones of relatives. Here, we use systematic presentations of object arrays to demonstrate that African elephants show higher levels of interest in elephant skulls and ivory than in natural objects or the skulls of other large terrestrial mammals. However, they do not appear to specifically select the skulls of their own relatives for investigation so that visits to dead relatives probably result from a more general attraction to elephant remains.

show abstract

Matriarchs As Repositories of Social Knowledge in African Elephants

Cited by 532 publications

References 9 publications

Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs

Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs

Bats are able to maintain long-term social relationships despite the high fission–fusion dynamics of their groups

African elephants show high levels of interest in the skulls and ivory of their own species

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About