Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex
Background Dominance is one of the most pervasive concepts in the study of wolf social behaviour but recently its validity has been questioned. For some authors, the bonds between members of wolf families are better described as parent-offspring relationships and the concept of dominance should be u...
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crpeerj:10.7717/peerj.2707 2024-09-15T18:01:27+00:00 Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex Cafazzo, Simona Lazzaroni, Martina Marshall-Pescini, Sarah Austrian Science Fund European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2707 https://peerj.com/articles/2707.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/2707.xml https://peerj.com/articles/2707.html en eng PeerJ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PeerJ volume 4, page e2707 ISSN 2167-8359 journal-article 2016 crpeerj https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2707 2024-07-23T04:08:31Z Background Dominance is one of the most pervasive concepts in the study of wolf social behaviour but recently its validity has been questioned. For some authors, the bonds between members of wolf families are better described as parent-offspring relationships and the concept of dominance should be used just to evaluate the social dynamics of non-familial captive pack members (e.g., Mech & Cluff, 2010). However, there is a dearth of studies investigating dominance relationships and its correlates in wolf family packs. Methods Here, we applied a combination of the most commonly used quantitative methods to evaluate the dominance relationships in a captive family pack of 19 Arctic wolves. Results We found a significant linear and completely transitive hierarchy based on the direction of submissive behaviours and found that dominance relationships were not influenced by the competitive contexts (feeding vs. non-feeding context). A significant linear hierarchy also emerges amongst siblings once the breeding pair (the two top-ranking individuals) is removed from analyses. Furthermore, results suggest that wolves may use greeting behaviour as a formal signal of subordination. Whereas older wolves were mostly dominant over younger ones, no clear effect of sex was found. However, frequency of agonistic (submissive, dominant and aggressive) behaviours was higher between female–female and male–male dyads than female–male dyads and sex-separated linear hierarchies showed a stronger linearity than the mixed one. Furthermore, dominance status was conveyed through different behavioural categories during intra-sexual and inter-sexual interactions. Discussion Current results highlight the importance of applying a systematic methodology considering the individuals’ age and sex when evaluating the hierarchical structure of a social group. Moreover, they confirm the validity of the concept of dominance relationships in describing the social bonds within a family pack of captive wolves. Article in Journal/Newspaper Canis lupus PeerJ Publishing PeerJ 4 e2707 |
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PeerJ Publishing |
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English |
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Background Dominance is one of the most pervasive concepts in the study of wolf social behaviour but recently its validity has been questioned. For some authors, the bonds between members of wolf families are better described as parent-offspring relationships and the concept of dominance should be used just to evaluate the social dynamics of non-familial captive pack members (e.g., Mech & Cluff, 2010). However, there is a dearth of studies investigating dominance relationships and its correlates in wolf family packs. Methods Here, we applied a combination of the most commonly used quantitative methods to evaluate the dominance relationships in a captive family pack of 19 Arctic wolves. Results We found a significant linear and completely transitive hierarchy based on the direction of submissive behaviours and found that dominance relationships were not influenced by the competitive contexts (feeding vs. non-feeding context). A significant linear hierarchy also emerges amongst siblings once the breeding pair (the two top-ranking individuals) is removed from analyses. Furthermore, results suggest that wolves may use greeting behaviour as a formal signal of subordination. Whereas older wolves were mostly dominant over younger ones, no clear effect of sex was found. However, frequency of agonistic (submissive, dominant and aggressive) behaviours was higher between female–female and male–male dyads than female–male dyads and sex-separated linear hierarchies showed a stronger linearity than the mixed one. Furthermore, dominance status was conveyed through different behavioural categories during intra-sexual and inter-sexual interactions. Discussion Current results highlight the importance of applying a systematic methodology considering the individuals’ age and sex when evaluating the hierarchical structure of a social group. Moreover, they confirm the validity of the concept of dominance relationships in describing the social bonds within a family pack of captive wolves. |
author2 |
Austrian Science Fund European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Cafazzo, Simona Lazzaroni, Martina Marshall-Pescini, Sarah |
spellingShingle |
Cafazzo, Simona Lazzaroni, Martina Marshall-Pescini, Sarah Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex |
author_facet |
Cafazzo, Simona Lazzaroni, Martina Marshall-Pescini, Sarah |
author_sort |
Cafazzo, Simona |
title |
Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex |
title_short |
Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex |
title_full |
Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex |
title_fullStr |
Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex |
title_full_unstemmed |
Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex |
title_sort |
dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves ( canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2707 https://peerj.com/articles/2707.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/2707.xml https://peerj.com/articles/2707.html |
genre |
Canis lupus |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus |
op_source |
PeerJ volume 4, page e2707 ISSN 2167-8359 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2707 |
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PeerJ |
container_volume |
4 |
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e2707 |
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1810438601777872896 |