The socioecology of elephants: analysis of the processes creating multitiered social structures
Section snippets
Study area
Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves are small, protected areas in the greater Samburu/Laikipia ecosystem of northern Kenya. These reserves are used by the largest elephant population (numbering approximately 5200 individuals) that resides primarily outside protected areas in Kenya (Omondi et al. 2002). As a result of heavy tourist use of the parks, the elephants using these reserves are habituated to vehicles, enabling easy observation of their behaviour. Between November 1997 and May
Differences from random structure
Using the methodology of Whitehead (1999), we found that the association behaviour of the Samburu elephant population differed significantly from random. Observed association indexes were significantly lower than random association indexes (observed = 0.085, random = 0.093; P < 0.0004), indicating that elephants maintained preferred associations within the 10-day sampling periods, which constrained the number of dyads associating (Whitehead, 1999, Gowans et al., 2001). In addition, the standard
Discussion
Elephants show stable, nonrandom social behaviour. Performing cluster analysis of association data, we were able to delineate four hierarchical social tiers from the continuum of social interactions. These four tiers showed significantly different degrees of cohesion (Table 4) and responded differently to temporal and seasonal effects. Individuals generally displayed strong unit fidelity across time and season, but fusions of lower-tier units into higher-tier units and fissions of higher-tier
Acknowledgments
We thank the Kenyan Office of the President and the Kenya Wildlife Service for permission to work in Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves. Additionally, the Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves' County Councils, wardens, and rangers have been incredibly supportive of our work. We thank J. Smith, P. Cross, H. B. Rasmussen, P. Baxter, E. Lacey, L. E. L. Rasmussen and P. Starks for comments on this manuscript. Hal Whitehead and an anonymous referee offered detailed comments that
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- 1
I. Douglas-Hamilton is at Save the Elephants, P.O. Box 54667, Nairobi, Kenya.
- 2
W. M. Getz is at the Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa.