Victims of infanticide and conspecific bite wounding in a female-dominant primate: a long-term study.
Abstract
The aggression animals receive from conspecifics varies between individuals across
their lifetime. As poignantly evidenced by infanticide, for example, aggression can
have dramatic fitness consequences. Nevertheless, we understand little about the sources
of variation in received aggression, particularly in females. Using a female-dominant
species renowned for aggressivity in both sexes, we tested for potential social, demographic,
and genetic patterns in the frequency with which animals were wounded by conspecifics.
Our study included 243 captive, ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta), followed from infancy
to adulthood over a 35-year time span. We extracted injury, social, and life-history
information from colony records and calculated neutral heterozygosity for a subset
of animals, as an estimate of genetic diversity. Focusing on victims rather than aggressors,
we used General Linear Models to explain bite-wound patterns at different life stages.
In infancy, maternal age best predicted wounds received, as infants born to young
mothers were the most frequent infanticide victims. In adulthood, sex best predicted
wounds received, as males were three times more likely than females to be seriously
injured. No relation emerged between wounds received and the other variables studied.
Beyond the generally expected costs of adult male intrasexual aggression, we suggest
possible additive costs associated with female-dominant societies - those suffered
by young mothers engaged in aggressive disputes and those suffered by adult males
aggressively targeted by both sexes. We propose that infanticide in lemurs may be
a costly by-product of aggressively mediated, female social dominance. Accordingly,
the benefits of female behavioral 'masculinization' accrued to females through priority
of access to resources, may be partially offset by early costs in reproductive success.
Understanding the factors that influence lifetime patterns of conspecific wounding
is critical to evaluating the fitness costs associated with social living; however,
these costs may vary substantially between societies.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8294Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1371/journal.pone.0082830Publication Info
Charpentier, Marie JE; & Drea, Christine M (2013). Victims of infanticide and conspecific bite wounding in a female-dominant primate:
a long-term study. PLoS One, 8(12). pp. e82830. 10.1371/journal.pone.0082830. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8294.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Christine M. Drea
Professor in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology
I have two broad research interests, sexual differentiation and
social behavior, both focused on hyenas and primates. I am
particularly interested in unusual species in which the females
display a suite of masculinized characteristics, including male-
like or exaggerated external genitalia and social dominance.
The study of naturally occurring hormones in such unique
mammals can reveal general processes of hormonal activity,
expressed in genital morphology, reproductive development,
and

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