Abstract
Dominant and subordinate individuals in a group may benefit from the stability of the social dominance organisation, avoiding excessive waste of time and energy in aggressive interactions and reducing injury risks. Nevertheless, the likely evolutionary incentive for individuals to become, and furthermore to stay, dominant may destabilise such dominance hierarchies. In this context, the relative importance of fixed (e.g. sex, morphological size) and fluctuating (e.g. body condition, mating status, reproductive success, social unit size) traits influencing the establishment and preservation of dominance relationships could play a key role in group structure. We investigated the relative role of fixed and fluctuating traits on social status in Dark-bellied Brent Geese Branta bernicla bernicla which form large fairly unstable groups both within and across winters. We compared individual dominance scores of ringed Brent Geese during four consecutive winters. Brent Geese conserved their dominance score within a given winter irrespective of their age but were generally unable to conserve it across consecutive winters. As winter dominance scores correlated best with social unit size, dominance status thus appeared to be mostly a by-product of a fluctuating trait: breeding success in the previous summer. When we considered only adults that had the same social unit size during two consecutive winters, we observed a significant preservation of dominance scores. This result suggests that a fixed trait such as sex or morphological size may still play a role in setting dominance status.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Pierre-Yves Perroi, Léopold Denonfoux, Coraline Moreau, Thomas Biteau, Sébastien Dalloyau, Alain Kim, David Pinaud, Alexandre Millon, Diane Desmonts, Sandra Blais, Daphné Durant and more particularly Bart Ebbinge, Gerard Müsken and Janien van der Greft for help with Brent Goose manipulations and observations. We also greatly appreciated the statistical assistance of Loïc Hardouin. The manuscript benefited greatly from critical comments by Marcel M. Lambrechts, Christophe Bonenfant, Matthieu Guillemain, David Carslake, Laurent Demongin and anonymous reviewers. Thank you to Philippe Delaporte and Frédéric Corre for letting us work in the Réserve Naturelle of Moëze-Oléron. The programme was funded by the CNRS, the Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage and the EU “Coast Bird Diversity” program EVK2-2000-00612.
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Communicated by F. Bairlein.
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Poisbleau, M., Guillon, N. & Fritz, H. Preservation of winter social dominance status in Brent Geese Branta bernicla bernicla within and across winters. J Ornithol 151, 737–744 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-009-0437-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-009-0437-8