The sinister side of meerkats revealed: Dominant mothers prevent their own daughters from breeding, study reveals
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Meerkats are often seen as easy going, comical creatures, but in reality they hide a much darker personality.
Research into the desert creatures, which live in groups with a dominant breeding pair and many adult helpers, found the alpha female flourishes when she maintains the sole right to breed.
This means mothers will often prevent their own daughters from breeding through the use of violence, and have been known to kill their competitors' offspring.
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh studied the impact of giving contraceptive jabs to adult female helpers in 12 groups of meerkats (stock image shown). They found the alpha female flourishes when she has the sole right to breed. Mothers will use violence to stop their daughters from breeding
IS CONFLICT GOOD FOR SOCIETY?
It may seem counterintuitive to stick people who don't get on in a room together and ask them to make difficult decisions, but it could produce the best results, according to research.
Conflicting views help increase the accuracy and effectiveness of decisions because they can make members of a group question why they have certain goals, and consider the goals of others.
To study this theory, researchers looked at the behaviour and decision making processes of meerkats, but the same principles could be applied to other social animals including humans.
The research was carried out by the London School of Economics and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.
It found that if multiple members in a meerkat group have different goals, when an individual makes a mistake, it has less impact on the group as a whole.
This is because that mistake is from a faction, rather than the collective, so can be offset by another member's actions relatively quickly.
They have also been known to banish other females who reproduce to ensure plentiful resources for the alpha pair's pups.
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh studied the impact of giving contraceptive jabs to adult female helpers in 12 groups of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert, to ensure they could not reproduce for six months.
During this time, dominant females were less aggressive towards helpers and foraged more.
They also gained more weight and had bigger pups.
The female helper meerkats experienced less violence than usual from the alpha female, and provided more care and food for the pups.
The study proved how this way of life, also found in many animals such as ants and bees, can prove effective despite its sinister side.
Dr Matthew Bell of the University of Edinburgh, School of Biological Sciences, who led the study, said: 'The meerkat way of life is a paradox, in which alpha females will attack their daughters, banish them from the group and infanticise their offspring.
'Our study reveals that dominant animals are worse off when subordinates in their group try to breed - explaining why they brutally suppress others much of the time.
'We expected this result, but its impact exceeded our expectations.'
The study, published in Nature Communications, was carried out by the Universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge, Exeter and Pretoria with the Kalahari Meerkat Project in South Africa.
It was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council.
In the study dominant females were less aggressive towards helpers and foraged more, gaining more weight and having bigger pups. It proved how this way of life, also found in many animals such as ants and bees (stock image of Western Honey Bee shown) can prove effective despite its sinister side
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