10.6084/m9.figshare.4009884.v1
Andrew M. Robbins
Andrew
M. Robbins
Maryke Gray
Maryke
Gray
Thomas Breuer
Thomas
Breuer
Marie Manguette
Marie
Manguette
Emma J. Stokes
Emma
J. Stokes
Prosper Uwingeli
Prosper
Uwingeli
Innocent Mburanumwe
Innocent
Mburanumwe
Edwin Kagoda
Edwin
Kagoda
Martha M. Robbins
Martha
M. Robbins
PresenceOfParents_SupplementaryMaterial.doc from Mothers may shape the variations in social organization among gorillas
The Royal Society
2016
maternal investment
dispersal
philopatry
multimale groups
life history
human evolution
patrilocal society
2016-10-12 10:37:53
Journal contribution
https://rs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/PresenceOfParents_SupplementaryMaterial_doc_from_Mothers_may_shape_the_variations_in_social_organization_among_gorillas/4009884
When mothers continue to support their offspring beyond infancy, they can influence the fitness of those offspring, the strength of social relationships within their groups, and the life-history traits of their species. Using up to 30 years of demographic data from 58 groups of gorillas in two study sites, this study extends such findings by showing that mothers may also contribute to differences in social organization between closely related species. Female mountain gorillas remained with their sons for significantly longer than western gorillas, which may explain why male philopatry and multimale groups are more common among mountain gorillas. The presence of the putative father and other familiar males did not vary significantly between species, and we found only limited support for the socio-ecological theory that the distribution of adult males is influenced by the distribution of females. Within each gorilla species, variations in those distributions may also reflect the different stages in the typical life cycle of a group. Collectively, our results highlight the potentially far-reaching consequences of maternal support that extends beyond infancy, and they illustrate the opportunity to incorporate additional factors into phylogenetic analyses of variations in social organization, including studies of human evolution.