As a result of social subordination, female common marmosets undergo suppression of ovulation and inhibition of sexual behaviour. This study examined the possibility that subordination also results in decreased aggressiveness and increased submissiveness towards same-sex strangers. Thirty-two adult females were pre-assigned to eight mixed-sex social groups. The females’ behavioural and adrenoco...

Social monitoring of the actions of group members is thought to be a key development associated with group living. Humans constantly monitor the behaviour of others and respond to them in a flexible way depending on past interactions and the current social context. While other primates have also been reported to change their behaviour towards other group members flexibly based on the current st...

A stable herd of fattening cattle comprising 9 steers and a heifer, which had been kept together over a month in a dry-lot, was observed for 13 days (0600-1900 h) to determine the diurnal distribution of the frequency of social licking interactions and to examine the relationship between social licking and agonistic behaviour. Agonistic behaviour was also classified into total (fighting, buntin...

Cooperative behaviour through reciprocation or interchange of valuable services in primates has received considerable attention, especially regarding the timeframe of reciprocation and its ensuing cognitive implications. Much less, however, is known about reciprocity in other animals, particularly birds. We investigated patterns of agonistic support (defined as a third party intervening in an o...

While individual variation in social behaviour is ubiquitous and causes social groups to differ in structure, how these structural differences affect fitness remains largely unknown. We used social network analysis of replicate bluebanded goby (Lythrypnus dalli) harems to identify the reproductive correlates of social network structure. In stable groups, we quantified agonistic behaviour, repro...

We estimated the energy expenditures resulting from helping behaviour in the cooperatively breeding cichlid N. pulcher by measuring the metabolic rates directly associated with specific social and territory maintenance behaviours of individual pair males and females, and their helpers, in a respirometer. In pair males, pair females and helpers, routine metabolism was raised on average 4.4, 3.8 ...