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Abstract. Circular dominance relationships were set up in polygynous Polistes wasp colonies at the pre-emergence phase, by making use of the effects of priority of residence. The results are discussed in relation to various models which have been proposed to explain social dominance. Key words. Circularity; dominance; model; polygyny; wasp.Since the pioneer studies by Schjelderup-Ebbe ~ and later studies by Allee 2, the term social dominance has been applied to any stable hierarchy which is set up within a group of animals as the result of fighting, even when the fighting is restricted to ritualized preludes. This definition indicates that we are dealing with an ethological mechanism subserving social organization. Dominance can be said to involve the following two basic features: 1) the existence of a gradable property (hierarchy) which can be detected by means of visible cues: the amount of aggression displayed by different individuals, for example, or the order of priority in which the individuals have access to food sources; 2) the establishment of this hierarchy by fighting, or sometimes by the mere suggestion of a fight, showing that some form of competition is at work. In any group where dominance prevails, each member has a specific position in relation to each of the other members, and the whole set of binary relationships has a linear overall pattern of organization. Dominance can therefore be said to be transitive, since if individual I dominates individual J, and if J dominates K, I will predictably dominate K. The triad I J K is therefore said to be transitive. In addition to this linear hierarchical model, there exists another hierarchical model in which the relations are not transitive but circular. According to this type of model, individual I dominates individual J, which dominates individual K, but K dominates I. This pattern of organization is to be found less frequently in nature. In particular, it seems unlikely that in a group organized on the basis of dominance alone, the leader will be involved in circular relationships. Although few circular triads have been found to exist in hierarchical groups, it seemed likely that they would be more numerous if dominance relations were distributed separately within pairs of individuals 3. Two families of models have been developed 4 to account for the origin of social hierarchies. The first, which has been called the Tournament Model, focuses on the relationships between any two subjects: each encounter between two animals results in one of them becoming superior to the other, and the same pattern is therefore repeated at each subsequent encounter. This model involves the assumption that each member of a group is capable of recognizing the other members individually. It accounts very satisfactorily for stable relationships between two individuals, but does not deal so efficiently with transitive relationships within a whole group. It explains quite clearly why particularly aggressive and unaggressive animals end up at the top and bottom of the hierarc...
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