Biology Commons^™

The Function Of Second-Order Male Alliances In St. Johns River Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Arien D. Widrick

UNF Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have a sexually segregated fission-fusion society, in which males and females form different types of social groups for different purposes. Social interactions among dolphins are frequent, and group composition changes just as often. Male-male association patterns reveal the formation of alliances, which range in complexity. Recently, second-order alliance formation was confirmed in the St. Johns River, but the function of these alliances is unknown. To investigate their function, this research analyzes the seasonality of first and second-order alliance formation, and whether female presence plays a role. It was hypothesized that higher level male alliances form in …