On the Fence: The Impact of Education on Support for Electric Fencing to Prevent Conflict between Humans and Baboons in Kommetjie, South Africa.

Few studies test whether education can help increase support for wildlife management interventions. This mixed methods study sought to test the importance of educating a community on the use of a baboon-proof electric fence to mitigate negative interactions between humans and Chacma baboons () in a residential suburb of the City of Cape Town, South Africa. An educational video on the welfare, conservation and lifestyle benefits of a baboon-proof electric fence was included in a short online survey.

Sex-independent senescence in a cooperatively breeding mammal.

Researchers studying mammals have frequently interpreted earlier or faster rates of ageing in males as resulting from polygyny and the associated higher costs of reproductive competition. Yet, few studies conducted on wild populations have compared sex-specific senescence trajectories outside of polygynous species, making it difficult to make generalized inferences on the role of reproductive competition in driving senescence, particularly when other differences between males and females might also contribute to sex-specific changes in performance across lifespan. Here, we examine age-related variation in body mass, reproductive output and survival in dominant male and female meerkats, Suricata suricatta.

The Evolution of Indiscriminate Altruism in a Cooperatively Breeding Mammal.

Kin selection theory suggests that altruistic behaviors can increase the fitness of altruists when recipients are genetic relatives. Although selection can favor the ability of organisms to preferentially cooperate with close kin, indiscriminately helping all group mates may yield comparable fitness returns if relatedness within groups is very high. Here, we show that meerkats () are largely indiscriminate altruists who do not alter the amount of help provided to pups or group mates in response to their relatedness to them.

The development of individual differences in cooperative behaviour: maternal glucocorticoid hormones alter helping behaviour of offspring in wild meerkats.

The phenotype of parents can have long-lasting effects on the development of offspring as well as on their behaviour, physiology and morphology as adults. In some cases, these changes may increase offspring fitness but, in others, they can elevate parental fitness at a cost to the fitness of their offspring. We show that in Kalahari meerkats ( Suricata suricatta), the circulating glucocorticoid (GC) hormones of pregnant females affect the growth and cooperative behaviour of their offspring.

No task specialization among helpers in Damaraland mole-rats.

The specialization of individuals in specific behavioural tasks is often attributed either to irreversible differences in development, which generate functionally divergent cooperative phenotypes, or to age-related changes in the relative frequency with which individuals perform different cooperative activities; both of which are common in many insect caste systems. However, contrasts in cooperative behaviour can take other forms and, to date, few studies of cooperative behaviour in vertebrates have explored the effects of age, adult phenotype and early development on individual differences in cooperative behaviour in sufficient detail to discriminate between these alternatives. Here, we used multinomial models to quantify the extent of behavioural specialization within nonreproductive Damaraland mole-rats, , at different ages.

Allo-parental care in Damaraland mole-rats is female biased and age dependent, though independent of testosterone levels.

In Damaraland mole-rats (Fukomys damarensis), non-breeding subordinates contribute to the care of offspring born to the breeding pair in their group by carrying and retrieving young to the nest. In social mole-rats and some cooperative breeders, dominant females show unusually high testosterone levels and it has been suggested that high testosterone levels may increase reproductive and aggressive behavior and reduce investment in allo-parental and parental care, generating age and state-dependent variation in behavior. Here we show that, in Damaraland mole-rats, allo-parental care in males and females is unaffected by experimental increases in testosterone levels.

The influence of stress hormones and aggression on cooperative behaviour in subordinate meerkats.

In cooperative breeders, aggression from dominant breeders directed at subordinates may raise subordinate stress hormone (glucocorticoid) concentrations. This may benefit dominants by suppressing subordinate reproduction but it is uncertain whether aggression from dominants can elevate subordinate cooperative behaviour, or how resulting changes in subordinate glucocorticoid concentrations affect their cooperative behaviour. We show here that the effects of manipulating glucocorticoid concentrations in wild meerkats () on cooperative behaviour varied between cooperative activities as well as between the sexes.

Variation in growth of Damaraland mole-rats is explained by competition rather than by functional specialization for different tasks.

In some eusocial insect societies, adaptation to the division of labour results in multimodal size variation among workers. It has been suggested that variation in size and growth among non-breeders in naked and Damaraland mole-rats may similarly reflect functional divergence associated with different cooperative tasks. However, it is unclear whether individual growth rates are multimodally distributed (as would be expected if variation in growth is associated with specialization for different tasks) or whether variation in growth is unimodally distributed, and is related to differences in the social and physical environment (as would be predicted if there are individual differences in growth but no discrete differences in developmental pathways).

Differences in cooperative behavior among Damaraland mole rats are consequences of an age-related polyethism.

In many cooperative breeders, the contributions of helpers to cooperative activities change with age, resulting in age-related polyethisms. In contrast, some studies of social mole rats (including naked mole rats, Heterocephalus glaber, and Damaraland mole rats, Fukomys damarensis) suggest that individual differences in cooperative behavior are the result of divergent developmental pathways, leading to discrete and permanent functional categories of helpers that resemble the caste systems found in eusocial insects. Here we show that, in Damaraland mole rats, individual contributions to cooperative behavior increase with age and are higher in fast-growing individuals.