Journal
ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
Volume 82, Issue 2, Pages 405-412Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.05.026
Keywords
bottlenose dolphin; mother-offspring; social development; social network; Tursiops
Categories
Funding
- Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation
- Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort
- Shark Bay Ecosystem Research
- Explorer's Club Washington Group
- Georgetown University Center For the Environment
- Georgetown University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
- National Science Foundation [0316800, 0820722, 9753044]
- Office of Naval Research-BAA [10230702]
- Georgetown University, Brach Foundation
- Eppley Foundation for Research
- National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems [0918308] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci [941487] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems
- Direct For Biological Sciences [9753044] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Early social development in long-lived social mammals has important implications for adult behaviour, particularly in taxa that exhibit stable long-term bonds. In one such species, bottlenose dolphins, calves have precocious locomotion, enabling them to separate from their mothers soon after birth and associate with other dolphins in the absence of direct maternal influence. To investigate mother and calf social patterns while together and separated, we analysed the ego networks of 27 mother-calf pairs constructed using group composition data from focal follows and evaluated differences based on calf sex. When separated, all calves had larger, less dense ego networks than their mothers, whereas ego networks of mother and calf when together were similar in size to those of calves, but significantly less dense. Most intriguingly, during separations, male calves' relationships with other male calves were stronger than expected, foreshadowing the long-term bonds between adult male alliance partners. Female-female calf relationships were not stronger than expected, but when together, mothers and female calves had strong relationships with juvenile females. These results support the social bonds hypothesis and suggest that temporary separations allow calves to build and strengthen their social networks. Since bottlenose dolphins show bisexual philopatry and infant relationships can persist into adulthood, calf independence and early social development probably have implications for future success. (C) 2011 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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