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Litter sex composition influences dominance status of Alpine marmots (Marmota marmota)

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Abstract

In social species, the hierarchical status of an individual has important consequences for its fitness. While many studies have focused on individual condition to explain access to dominance, very few have investigated the influence of the social environment, especially during early life. Yet it is known that environmental conditions early in life may influence several traits at adulthood. Here, we examine the influence of early social environment on accession to dominance by investigating the influence of litter size and sex composition on survival and the probability of ascending to dominance later in life using a 20-year dataset from a wild population of Alpine marmots (Marmota marmota). Although litter size had no effect on the fate of individuals, litter sex composition affected male juvenile survival and both male and female probabilities of reaching dominant status when adult. Male juveniles incur lower survival when the number of male juveniles in the litter increases, and individuals of both sexes from male-biased litters are more likely to become dominant than individuals from female-biased litters. However, the absolute number of sisters in the litter, rather than the sex ratio, seems to be an important predictor of the probability of acquiring dominant status: pups having more sisters are less likely to become dominant. Several potential mechanisms to explain these results are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all students involved in the trapping of Alpine marmots at La Sassière. We warmly thank all Earthwatch volunteers for their help. Thanks are also extended to authorities of the Vanoise National Park for allowing us to work in the Grande Sassière Nature Reserve. Finally, we thank Earthwatch Institute for financial support. The experiments conducted comply with current French laws. All the handling and sampling were done by A.C. and S.L. who are authorized for experimentation with animals by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (diploma nos 0ETRY20090520 and 433R45GRETAF110). The protocol was approved by the ethical committee of the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 no. BH2012-92 V1.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, UMR 5558, CNRS, Université Lyon 1, Université de Lyon, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, Villeurbanne, 69622, France

    Pierre Dupont, Sophie Lardy, Dominique Allainé & Aurélie Cohas

  2. EPHE, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, CEFE UMR 5175, 1919 Route de Mende, Montpellier Cedex 5, 34293, France

    Roger Pradel

  3. Groupe Écologie et Conservation, Université d’Angers, Angers, France

    Sophie Lardy

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  1. Pierre Dupont
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  2. Roger Pradel
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  4. Dominique Allainé
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  5. Aurélie Cohas
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Correspondence to Pierre Dupont.

Additional information

Communicated by Janne Sundell.

Electronic supplementary material

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442_2015_3375_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Online resource 1: Genetic and kinship analyses. Online resource 2: Fate diagram and recapture histories construction. Online resource 3: Multi-Event model construction using E-SURGE. Online resource 4: Goodness Of Fit tests and selection of the root model. (PDF 598 kb)

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Dupont, P., Pradel, R., Lardy, S. et al. Litter sex composition influences dominance status of Alpine marmots (Marmota marmota). Oecologia 179, 753–763 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3375-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3375-6

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