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Effect Of Matriarchs On Group Interactions, Kinship Fitness, And Differences In Chemosensory Behavior Of African Elephants (Loxodonta Africana), Rhea Marie Esposito

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Female African elephants exhibit multiple levels of social organization with the family as the functional social unit. Families consist of related females and the oldest female is the matriarch. Related family groups that frequently fuse are termed kinship groups, led by the grand matriarch. I examined matriarch communication behavior across social context and their role in interactions between families at waterholes in Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa. I analyzed three hypotheses for matriarchal effects on group fitness: a) older matriarchs provide greater access to resources, b) older matriarchs lead more social groups, or c) there is no behavior-fitness relationship …