Odour-based kin discrimination in the cooperatively breeding meerkat
- Leclaire, Sarah Kalahari Meerkat Project, Kuruman River Reserve, Northern Cape, South Africa
- Nielsen, Johanna F. Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK
- Thavarajah, Nathan K. Kalahari Meerkat Project, Kuruman River Reserve, Northern Cape, South Africa
- Manser, Marta Animal Behaviour, Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
- Clutton-Brock, Tim H. Kalahari Meerkat Project, Kuruman River Reserve, Northern Cape, South Africa
- 2013-2-23
Published in:
- Biology Letters. - The Royal Society. - 2013, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 20121054
English
Kin recognition is a useful ability for animals, facilitating cooperation among relatives and avoidance of excessive kin competition or inbreeding. In meerkats,
Suricata suricatta,
encounters between unfamiliar kin are relatively frequent, and kin recognition by phenotype matching is expected to avoid inbreeding with close relatives. Here, we investigate whether female meerkats are able to discriminate the scent of unfamiliar kin from unfamiliar non-kin. Dominant females were presented with anal gland secretion from unfamiliar individuals that varied in their relatedness. Our result indicates that females spent more time investigating the scent of related than unrelated unfamiliar individuals, suggesting that females may use a phenotype matching mechanism (or recognition alleles) to discriminate the odour of their kin from the odour of their non-kin. Our study provides a key starting point for further investigations into the use of kin recognition for inbreeding avoidance in the widely studied meerkat.
Kin recognition is a useful ability for animals, facilitating cooperation among relatives and avoidance of excessive kin competition or inbreeding. In meerkats,
encounters between unfamiliar kin are relatively frequent, and kin recognition by phenotype matching is expected to avoid inbreeding with close relatives. Here, we investigate whether female meerkats are able to discriminate the scent of unfamiliar kin from unfamiliar non-kin. Dominant females were presented with anal gland secretion from unfamiliar individuals that varied in their relatedness. Our result indicates that females spent more time investigating the scent of related than unrelated unfamiliar individuals, suggesting that females may use a phenotype matching mechanism (or recognition alleles) to discriminate the odour of their kin from the odour of their non-kin. Our study provides a key starting point for further investigations into the use of kin recognition for inbreeding avoidance in the widely studied meerkat.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- bronze
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1098/rsbl.2012.1054
- ISSN 1744-9561
- Persistent URL
- https://susi.usi.ch/global/documents/197589
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