Reproductive competition triggers mass eviction in cooperative banded mongooses

Thompson, FJ, Marshall, HH, Sanderson, JL, Vitikainen, EIK, Nichols, HJ, Gilchrist, JS, Young, AJ, Hodge, SJ and Cant, MA (2016) Reproductive competition triggers mass eviction in cooperative banded mongooses. PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. ISSN 0962-8452

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Abstract

In many vertebrate societies, forced eviction of group members is an important determinant of population structure, but little is known about what triggers eviction. Three main explanations are (1) the reproductive competition hypothesis; (2) the coercion of cooperation hypothesis; and (3) the adaptive forced dispersal hypothesis. The last hypothesis proposes that dominant individuals use eviction as an adaptive strategy to propagate copies of their alleles through a highly structured population. We tested these hypotheses as explanations for eviction in cooperatively breeding banded mongooses (Mungos mungo), using a 16-year dataset on life history, behaviour and relatedness. In this species, groups of females, or mixed-sex groups, are periodically evicted en masse. Our evidence suggests that reproductive competition is the main ultimate trigger for eviction for both sexes. We find little evidence that mass eviction is used to coerce helping, or as a mechanism to force dispersal of relatives into the population. Eviction of females changes the landscape of reproductive competition for remaining males, which may explain why males are evicted alongside females. Our results show that the consequences of resolving within-group conflict resonate through groups and populations to affect population structure, with important implications for social evolution.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	06 Biological Sciences, 11 Medical And Health Sciences, 07 Agricultural And Veterinary Sciences
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history Q Science > QL Zoology
Divisions:	Natural Sciences and Psychology (closed 31 Aug 19)
Publisher:	Royal Society
Date of acceptance:	8 February 2016
Date of first compliant Open Access:	31 March 2016
Date Deposited:	22 Feb 2016 15:05
Last Modified:	04 Sep 2021 13:24
URI:	https://ljmu-9.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/2940

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