TY - JOUR
T1 - Core area quality is associated with variance in reproductive success among female chimpanzees at Kibale National Park
AU - Thompson, Melissa Emery
AU - Kahlenberg, Sonya M.
AU - Gilby, Ian C.
AU - Wrangham, Richard W.
N1 - Funding Information:
Research at Kanyawara was supported by funding from National Science Foundation grant 0416126 to R. Wrangham. Hormonal analyses were supported by grants to M.E.T. from Harvard University, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Local research support and permissions were obtained from the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Makerere University Biological Field Station. Daily data collection was done by Francis Mugurusi, Christopher Muruuli, Peter Tuhairwe, John Barwogeza, Christopher Katongole and the late Donor Muhangyi, with field management by Michael Wilson, Martin Muller, Katherine Pieta, Carole Hooven and Kimberly Duffy. We thank Meg Crofoot, Zarin Machanda, Martin Muller, Rachel Carmody, Peter Ellison and four anonymous referees for helpful comments on the manuscript.
PY - 2007/3
Y1 - 2007/3
N2 - Female East African chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, tend to range apart from each other in dispersed core areas, and they have dominance interactions with each other so rarely that it is difficult for observers to assess a dominance hierarchy. Nevertheless female chimpanzees can have high variance in fitness. Here, we test the hypothesis that female chimpanzee fitness variance is associated with variation in the foraging quality of their ranges. We studied range usage of 21 wild adult female chimpanzees within the Kanyawara community, Kibale National Park, Uganda. Core areas of individuals remained stable over a 9-year period and varied in their density of preferred foods. Females in neighbourhoods containing more preferred foods had elevated ovarian hormone production, shorter birth intervals and higher infant survivorship. Our results thus suggest that superior access to food may have enabled some community females to reproduce more successfully than others. Although dominance interactions are less frequent among females than among males of this species, we propose that the intensity of selection on intrasexual competition may be similar between the sexes. We discuss potential applications to other fission-fusion species.
AB - Female East African chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, tend to range apart from each other in dispersed core areas, and they have dominance interactions with each other so rarely that it is difficult for observers to assess a dominance hierarchy. Nevertheless female chimpanzees can have high variance in fitness. Here, we test the hypothesis that female chimpanzee fitness variance is associated with variation in the foraging quality of their ranges. We studied range usage of 21 wild adult female chimpanzees within the Kanyawara community, Kibale National Park, Uganda. Core areas of individuals remained stable over a 9-year period and varied in their density of preferred foods. Females in neighbourhoods containing more preferred foods had elevated ovarian hormone production, shorter birth intervals and higher infant survivorship. Our results thus suggest that superior access to food may have enabled some community females to reproduce more successfully than others. Although dominance interactions are less frequent among females than among males of this species, we propose that the intensity of selection on intrasexual competition may be similar between the sexes. We discuss potential applications to other fission-fusion species.
KW - Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii
KW - chimpanzee
KW - endocrinology
KW - habitat ecology
KW - intrasexual competition
KW - ranging
KW - reproductive ecology
KW - reproductive success
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U2 - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.09.007
DO - 10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.09.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33847648520
SN - 0003-3472
VL - 73
SP - 501
EP - 512
JO - Animal Behaviour
JF - Animal Behaviour
IS - 3
ER -