Skip to main content
Journal cover image

Meerkat manners: Endocrine mediation of female dominance and reproductive control in a cooperative breeder.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Drea, CM; Davies, CS
Published in: Hormones and behavior
September 2022

This article is part of a Special Issue (Hormones and Hierarchies). To gain more balanced understanding of sexual selection and mammalian sexual differentiation processes, this review addresses behavioral sex differences and hormonal mediators of intrasexual competition in the meerkat (Suricata suricatta) - a cooperative breeder unusual among vertebrates in its female aggression, degree of reproductive skew, and phenotypic divergence. Focused on the evolution, function, mechanism, and development of female dominance, the male remains a key reference point throughout. Integrated review of endocrine function does not support routine physiological suppression in subordinates of either sex, but instead a ramp up of weight, reproduction, aggression, and sex steroids, particularly androgens, in dominant females. Important and timely questions about female competition are thus addressed by shifting emphasis from mediators of reproductive suppression to mediators of reproductive control, and from organizational and activational roles of androgens in males to their roles in females. Unusually, we ask not only how inequity is maintained, but how dominance is acquired within a lifetime and across generations. Antiandrogens administered in the field to males and pregnant dominant females confirm the importance of androgen-mediated food competition. Moreover, effects of maternal endocrine milieu on offspring development reveal a heritable, androgenic route to female aggression, likely promoting reproductive priority along dominant matrilines. Integrating endocrine measures with long-term behavioral, ecological, morphological, and life-history data on normative and experimental individuals, across life stages and generations, provides better appreciation of the role of naturally circulating androgens in regulating the female phenotype, and sheds new light on the evolution of female dominance, reproductive inequity, and cooperative breeding.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Hormones and behavior

DOI

EISSN

1095-6867

ISSN

0018-506X

Publication Date

September 2022

Volume

145

Start / End Page

105245

Related Subject Headings

  • Steroids
  • Social Dominance
  • Sexual Behavior, Animal
  • Reproduction
  • Pregnancy
  • Male
  • Herpestidae
  • Female
  • Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology
  • Animals
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Drea, C. M., & Davies, C. S. (2022). Meerkat manners: Endocrine mediation of female dominance and reproductive control in a cooperative breeder. Hormones and Behavior, 145, 105245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2022.105245
Drea, Christine M., and Charli S. Davies. “Meerkat manners: Endocrine mediation of female dominance and reproductive control in a cooperative breeder.Hormones and Behavior 145 (September 2022): 105245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2022.105245.
Drea, Christine M., and Charli S. Davies. “Meerkat manners: Endocrine mediation of female dominance and reproductive control in a cooperative breeder.Hormones and Behavior, vol. 145, Sept. 2022, p. 105245. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2022.105245.
Journal cover image

Published In

Hormones and behavior

DOI

EISSN

1095-6867

ISSN

0018-506X

Publication Date

September 2022

Volume

145

Start / End Page

105245

Related Subject Headings

  • Steroids
  • Social Dominance
  • Sexual Behavior, Animal
  • Reproduction
  • Pregnancy
  • Male
  • Herpestidae
  • Female
  • Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology
  • Animals