Dominance Hierarchy - Female Dominance in Mammals

Female Dominance in Mammals

Female-biased dominance occurs rarely in mammals, and it is only observed consistently in hyenas, lemurs and the bonobo. It occurs when all adult males exhibit submissive behavior to adult females in social settings. These social settings are usually related to feeding, grooming, and sleeping site priority.

There are three basic proposals for the evolution of female dominance:

1. The Energy Conservation Hypothesis: males subordinate to females to conserve energy for intense male-male competition experienced during very short breeding seasons
2. Male behavioral strategy: males defer as a parental investment because it ensures more resources in a harsh unpredictable climate for the female, and thus, the male's future offspring.
3. Female behavioral strategy: dominance helps females deal with the unusually high reproductive demands; they prevail in more social conflicts because they have more at stake in terms of fitness.

Since these original proposals, scientists like Peter Kappeler have modified and integrated other ideas. However, in the case of lemurs, there is no single hypothesis that can fully explain female social dominance at this time and all three are likely to play a role.