Mothers may shape the variations in social organization among gorillas.

ABSTRACT: When mothers continue to support their offspring beyond infancy, they can influence the fitness of those offspring, the strength of social relationships within their groups, and the life-history traits of their species. Using up to 30 years of demographic data from 58 groups of gorillas in two study sites, this study extends such findings by showing that mothers may also contribute to differences in social organization between closely related species. Female mountain gorillas remained with their sons for significantly longer than western gorillas, which may explain why male philopatry and multimale groups are more common among mountain gorillas. The presence of the putative father and other familiar males did not vary significantly between species, and we found only limited support for the

SUBMITTER: Robbins AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5098995 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature