Feeding and sociality Flashcards
what is the socio-ecological model?
Sociology is affected by ecology.
This model will be able to predict whether there will be high competition between females and competition between groups and within groups depending on food abundance, distribution and quality.
What can the socio-ecological model tell us about food distribution and social relationships?
Food determines the distribution of females and withing and between group relationships.
Group living induces competition between females for access to food. What are the two types of competition seen between females?
Contest competition:
- direct
- aggressive (displacements and aggression over resources)
- Group members are affected differently because of the hierarchy in the group. Being higher ranked will benefit the individual in competition.
Scramble competition:
- indirect
- not aggressive (depletion of food sites because other individuals are present)
- affects all group members equally.
- Scramble competition is seen more when food is lower quality.
How can the size of a food patch affect sociality in a group of primates?
If not all individuals can fit onto a food patch then you would most likely see a dominance hirachy would develop because of high competition. This would mean that there would be more time spent on alliances and close bonds. This can also lead to feeding parties breaking off and could lead to fission-fusion relationships as seen in colobines and chimpanzees.
If all the individuals of a social unit can fit into one food patch then there wouldn’t be any or as much need to form a dominance hierarchy and therefore spend energy on keeping bonds close or need alliances.
How does temporal availability of food resources affect competition?
There will be times of the year with intense intra and inter competition. So the composition of groups changing over the year.
How does an even spatial distribution of food patches affect competition in primates?
This is normally seen with low-quality foods.
They are not monopolizable so there is no need to fight for control which leads to no contest competition but indices scramble competition.
How does a clumped spatial distribution of food patches affect competition in primates?
This is seen with high quality foods. E.g fruit
These types of food is monopolizable and so worth competing for.
This induces contest competition.
Clumped food would be easier to defend because you can define the boundaries. If it is worth defending it will be high quality food.
This will impact group size.
Because contest competition leads to the establishment of a dominance hierarchy. What are subordinate individuals prevented from actively competing at?
food source
resting places
mating opportunities
What are the benefits of a dominance hierarchy?
You don’t see constant overt aggression. Because they have established the dominance hierarchy. Once individuals know their place, when the group comes to an important resource then there isn’t overt aggression all the time which reduces stress within the group.
How do clumped resources lead to female philopatry and strong female-female bonds?
Because clumped high quality foods are monopolizable between and within groups females form coalitions to defend food from other groups.
Most likely to see female-bonded groups because you need the strong social bonds to protect and monopolize the food resource.
kin are the most reliable allies and aiding kin increases their inclusive fitness.
Philopatry occurs because high quality foods are needed for successful reproduction.
describe the typical relationships between female rank and reproductive success
Higher rank gives first access toresources such as high quality food.
Higher ranked yellow baboons have been found to have earlier sexual maturity and higher ranked olive baboons have shorter inter-birth intervals, higher infant survival and their daughters mature faster.
describe the typical relationship between female rank, suvivorship and food shortage
When resources are really high then the rankings between families are about the same. But differences will occur when there is a drought.
Higher ranking families tend to live and lower ranking families die during long droughts. Sometimes lower ranking families will leave the group to find an alternative resource. This leads to all mortalities being found in lower ranking females. This has been observed in Torque macaques and Vervets.
what intrinsic and extrinsic elements can dominance be influenced by?
Intrinsic elements; strength, body size and canine size
Extrinsic elements; alliances
What are the two main types of hierarchies found in females?
- Matrilineal dominance hierarchy
- Individualistic - based on intrinsic and extrinsic factors e.g fighting ability, age or alliances.
Individualistic dominance is often seen in groups where there are disperses in the group at sexual maturity.
Describe the features of Japenese macaque matrilineal dominance
- daughters inherit mother’s rank. Younger daughters displace older daughters. This leads to a nepotistic and despotic hierarchy.
(Nepotistic means kin-based, despotic means leader/dictatorship, Kin-based, strong dominance it will be high quality food like fruit.) - Sons do not integrate into hierarchy - they transfer between groups.
- Systems are stable over several generations. The only time you tend to see disruption in hierarchies. Is if the daughter of the alpha female is very very young. Then lower ranking families might try and displace them.
