Age and sex influence social interactions, but not associations, within a killer whale pod.

ABSTRACT: Social structure is a fundamental aspect of animal populations. In order to understand the function and evolution of animal societies, it is important to quantify how individual attributes, such as age and sex, shape social relationships. Detecting these influences in wild populations under natural conditions can be challenging, especially when social interactions are difficult to observe and broad-scale measures of association are used as a proxy. In this study, we use unoccupied aerial systems to observe association, synchronous surfacing, and physical contact within a pod of southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca). We show that interactions do not occur randomly between associated individuals, and that interaction types are not interchangeable. While age and sex did

SUBMITTER: Weiss MN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8206696 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature