Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/1177
Appears in Collections:Psychology Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Mountain gorilla tug-of-war: Silverbacks have limited control over reproduction in multimale groups
Author(s): Bradley, Brenda J
Robbins, Martha M
Williamson, Elizabeth A
Steklis, H Dieter
Gerald-Steklis, Netzin
Eckhardt, Nadin
Boesch, Christophe
Vigilant, Linda
Contact Email: e.a.williamson@stir.ac.uk
Keywords: gorilla
paternity
Gorilla
Social behavior in animals
Gorilla behavior
Issue Date: 28-Jun-2005
Date Deposited: 12-May-2009
Citation: Bradley BJ, Robbins MM, Williamson EA, Steklis HD, Gerald-Steklis N, Eckhardt N, Boesch C & Vigilant L (2005) Mountain gorilla tug-of-war: Silverbacks have limited control over reproduction in multimale groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102 (26), pp. 9418-9423. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0502019102
Abstract: To determine who fathers the offspring in wild mountain gorilla groups containing more than one adult male silverback, we genotyped nearly one-fourth (n = 92) of the mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) living in the Virunga Volcanoes region of Africa. Paternity analysis of 48 offspring born into four groups between 1985 and 1999 revealed that, although all infants were sired by within-group males, the socially dominant silverback did not always monopolize reproduction within his group. Instead, the second-ranking male sired an average of 15% of group offspring. This result, in combination with previous findings that secondranking males fare best by not leaving the group but by staying and waiting to assume dominance even if no reproduction is possible while waiting, is not consistent with expectations from a reproductive skew model in which the silverback concedes controllable reproduction to the second-ranking male. Instead, the data suggest a ‘‘tug-of-war’’ scenario in which neither the dominant nor the second-ranking male has full control over his relative reproductive share. The two top-ranked males were typically unrelated and this, in combination with the mixed paternity of group offspring, means that multimale gorilla groups do not approximate family groups. Instead, as long-term assemblages of related and unrelated individuals, gorilla groups are similar to chimpanzee groups and so offer interesting possibilities for kinbiased interactions among individuals.
DOI Link: 10.1073/pnas.0502019102
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