Fitness‐related benefits of dominance in primates

Abstract

Dominance hierarchies are thought to provide various fitness-related benefits to dominant individuals (e.g., preferential access to food or mating partners). Remarkably, however, different studies on this topic have produced contradictory results, with some showing strong positive association between rank and fitness (i.e., dominants gain benefits over subordinates), others weak associations, and some others even revealing negative associations. Here, we investigate dominance-related benefits across primate species while controlling for phylogenetic effects. We extracted data from 94 published studies, representing 25 primate species (2 lemur species, 4 New World monkeys, 16 Old World monkeys, and 3 apes), to assess how dominance affects life-history and behavior. We used standard and phylogenetic meta-analyses to analyze the benefits of dominance in primates. Dominant females had higher infant survival to first year, although we found no significant effect of dominance on female feeding success. Results for female fecundity differed between the two meta-analytical approaches, with no effect of dominance on female fecundity after controlling for phylogeny. Dominant males had a higher fecundity and mating success than subordinate males. Finally, the benefits of dominance for female fecundity were stronger in species with a longer lifespan. Our study supports the view that dominance hierarchies are a key aspect of primate societies as they indeed provide a number of fitness-related benefits to individuals.

Behavioral flexibility of vervet monkeys in response to climatic and social variability

“…In the mating season males tend to spend more time grooming females to improve mating opportunities (Gumert, 2007). Moreover, due to the higher frequencies of male-male competition in the mating season (Henzi and Lucas, 1980)-where dominant individuals tend to gain better access to females (Cowlishaw and Dunbar, 1991;Majolo et al, 2012)-grooming is likely to play an important role in managing male-male conflict. For example, grooming is often exchanged by former opponents to reconcile the costs of aggression (Cheney and Seyfarth, 1989;McFarland and Majolo, 2011a,b).…”

Female sociality and sexual conflict shape offspring survival in a Neotropical primate

“…An association (usually positive) between maternal rank and offspring survival is prevalent in many mammalian species (37,38), but was not documented in previous studies of our study population (39). In the present study, we were able to detect this link because we determined infanticide risk by assessing conception time and birth date in relation to AMR events instead of using (rarely) confirmed instances of infanticide, and we included the interaction between infanticide risk and rank (or sociality) in our models.…”

It's cool to be dominant: social status alters short-term risks of heat stress

“…Such hierarchies fundamentally influence fitness, with dominant individuals generally having priority access to resources and breeding opportunities (Majolo et al, 2012;Nelson-Flower et al, 2011). Social interactions can also affect organismal physiology; subordinate endotherms often experience elevated body temperature (Bakken et al, 1999;Carere et al, 2001;Meerlo et al, 1996) and corticosterone (Bhatnagar et al, 2006;Keeney et al, 2001) following social defeats.…”