Dominance, aggression, and glucocorticoid levels in social carnivores
In social animals, reproductive success is often related to social dominance. In cooperatively breeding birds and mammals, reproductive rates are usually lower for social subordinates than for dominants, and it is common for reproduction in subordinates to be completely suppressed. Early research with captive animals showed that losing fights can increase glucocorticoid (GC) secretion, a […]
Individual recognition in a wild cooperative mammal using contact calls
Many of the mechanisms advanced to explain the evolution of intraspecific cooperative behaviour, such as reciprocity or social prestige, hinge on an animal’s ability to recognize individual group members. However, ‘true’ individual recognition, between adult group members, has never been demonstrated in a cooperatively breeding bird or mammal species. We tested whether a wild cooperative […]