Social Behavior and group formation

Question 1

what are the disadvantages of group formation

Answer 1

• shared resources increase competition if resources are limited.
• more noticeable
• must invest energy in social behavior
• could cause increased inbreeding.
• reproductive suppression is typical within groups

Question 2

why do organisms live in groups

Answer 2

most reasons revolve around an ecological basis.

Question 3

what are the two main hypotheses for group formation?

Answer 3

• Predator avoidance and defense.
• increase in foraging efficiency.

Question 4

Predator avoidance and defence

Answer 4

• more eyes and ears to look for predators, more individuals to help defend.

Question 5

Increase in foraging efficiency

Answer 5

By living in a social group, you can rely on the memory of other individuals regarding the pattern of food and water availability in your home range.
- larger groups are able to defend resources better.

Question 6

factors influencing group formation

Answer 6

• resource distribution
• predation risk
• intraspecific competition

Question 7

what can the distribution of resources do to a group

Answer 7

• prohibit group formation
• promote group formation
• permit group formation while some other factor acts to puch group formation.

Question 8

what does this mean for solitary or asocial species

Answer 8

often has something to do with the reasources needed that forces individuals to live and forage alone.

Question 9

what are the effects of resource distribution?

Answer 9

• determines how far an organism must travel for food.
• in general higher quality food like fruit and insects are less abundant and tend to have patchier distribution.
• things like leaves are often abundant and have a uniform distribution.
• this means that organisms that are folivores do not have to travel as far to find food so they do not have to burn as many calories.
• with a patchy distribution of high-quality food, an organism has to travel further, burning more calories but can consume higher quality food.

Question 10

what do organisms do when their preferred food is scarce?

Answer 10

• they have to switch to a less preferred food
• fission-fusion hunting in a group
• due to insects’ mobile nature, they have random distribution and are scarce, which makes it impossible for larger primates to rely on them.

Question 11

what about for groups that are not formed because of resource distribtion

Answer 11

for grazers, group formation allows for safety because while some are feeding with their head down, the others can keep watch.

Question 12

How are social groups organized

Answer 12

Females depend on food
- lactation and pregnancy are energetically expensive.
males depend on females
- for success in mating and passing on genes.

Question 13

social relationships - female interactions

Answer 13

Female-female competition
female rank and mothering style
female boding

Question 14

Female-Female competition

Answer 14

• more low-key bc of the presence of infants
• Direct contest over food = displacements
• indirect suppression or inhibition of ovulation via pheromones
• create allies/coalitions to support or cooperate against others: close vs. distant kin, matriline, intergroup contest.

Question 15

Mothering styles

Answer 15

Permissive: are less restraining of their young
restrictive: are more protective of their young

Question 16

How does mothering style correlate to rank

Answer 16

permissive mothers tend to be of higher rank. this is because they trust that their children will be cared for because they have more allies. this is especially true in groups where children’s inherent rank for their mother.
- because of this, weaning tends to happen at an earlier age with these parents because they want to get pregnant again and have the resources to help care for their child.

restrictive parents tend to be of lower rank, but it can happen where lower-ranking mothers if they are able to form strategic bonds, are more likely to succed

Question 17

what is the correlation between rank and sex manipulation

Answer 17

• mothers can manipulate to choose the sex of their offspring.
• it is common for lower ranking mothers to have males in a matraline society so that they can mate with a higher ranking female and work their way up.
• it is common for higher-ranking females in a matriline to have female offspring to continue their genes while maintaining high rank.
• in all cases, female behavior influences male options.

Question 18

what are the ecological conditions needed for females bonding?

Answer 18

• High quality, preferred foods occur in large dependable patches.
• switch diet to include lower quality, abundant, subsistence foods when preferred foods are scarce rather than fission fussion behavior.

Question 19

social relationships: male interactions

Answer 19

• males compete for fertilization
• male - male competition
  fighting, subtle, mixed

Question 20

male interactions :fighting

Answer 20

when females can be monopolized
- competition for rank and priority of access to females

Question 21

male interactions: subtle

Answer 21

when females cannot be monopolized
- sperm competition (testes size)

Question 22

male interactions: mixed

Answer 22

compete with other males and also form friendships with females, and form coalitions with other males.

Question 23

social relations: male - female

Answer 23

largely determined by sexual dimorphism

Question 24

how does sexual dimorphism affect male - females interactions.

Answer 24

• if males are only slightly larger (females 70-85% of male size), males can dominate females, but females may form coalitions to dominate males.

Question 25

female coalitions against males

Answer 25

- repulse migrating males - protection from attacking males - protect infants females can also control males by deciding if they can join a group. Can impact a male's dominance in a group thus their ability to mate. if females are 50% of the size of males, males are generally dominate in forming friendships.