Matriarchs as Repositories of Social Knowledge in African Elephants

Despite widespread interest in the evolution of social intelligence, little is known about how wild animals acquire and store information about social companions or whether individuals possessing enhanced social knowledge derive biological fitness benefits. Using playback experiments on African elep...

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Vydáno v:	Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Ročník 292; číslo 5516; s. 491 - 494
Hlavní autoři:	McComb, Karen, Moss, Cynthia, Durant, Sarah M., Baker, Lucy, Sayialel, Soila
Médium:	Journal Article
Jazyk:	angličtina
Vydáno:	Washington, DC American Society for the Advancement of Science 20.04.2001 American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science
Témata:	African elephant Age Aging Animal behavior Animal ethology Animal kin recognition Animal memory Animal social behavior Animals Behavior, Animal Biological and medical sciences Biological Evolution Calves Conservation of Natural Resources Discrimination (Psychology) Elephants Elephants - physiology Exploratory Behavior Female Females Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Impact craters Kenya Kin recognition in animals Logistics Loxodonta africana Mammalia Matrilineal kinship Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry Reproduction Reproductive success Social Behavior Social knowledge Statistical variance Success Vertebrata Vocalization, Animal Wildlife studies Kenya United States Africa Proboscidea Vertebrata Mammalia Social behavior Endangered species Aged animal Loxodonta africana Breeding success Female Animal conservation Information transmission Ungulata
ISSN:	0036-8075, 1095-9203
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Popis
Shrnutí:	Despite widespread interest in the evolution of social intelligence, little is known about how wild animals acquire and store information about social companions or whether individuals possessing enhanced social knowledge derive biological fitness benefits. Using playback experiments on African elephants (Loxodonta africana), we demonstrated that the possession of enhanced discriminatory abilities by the oldest individual in a group can influence the social knowledge of the group as a whole. These superior abilities for social discrimination may result in higher per capita reproductive success for female groups led by older individuals. Our findings imply that the removal of older, more experienced individuals, which are often targets for hunters because of their large size, could have serious consequences for endangered populations of advanced social mammals such as elephants and whales.
Bibliografie:	SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 14 ObjectType-Article-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:	0036-8075 1095-9203
DOI:	10.1126/science.1057895