The effect of male age on patterns of sexual segregation in Siberian ibex
Date
2018-08-30
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Sexual segregation is very common in sexually size dimorphic ungulates and may be the result of different habitat preferences and/or differential social behaviours of males and females. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain this phenomenon. In the present research, we examined sexual segregation in a quite poorly-understood species, the Siberian ibex. The species presents a marked sexual size dimorphism, with adult males weighing double as much as females. We use the Sexual Segregation and Aggregation Statistics (SSAS) to analyze the sex-age patterns of sexual segregation in this species, to understand the relevance of social factors. Our results show that adult Siberian ibex males were socially segregated from females all year-round, except during the rutting season. Furthermore, the degree of segregation between females and males was influenced by the age of males. Moreover, the patterns of social segregation within males also increased with male age, reaching maximum values for males of 9-years-old and older, which means male age plays an important role in the sexual segregation of this species. This study clearly shows that social factors play a key role in the sexual segregation of Siberian ibex.
Description
This work was also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31661143019, 41661144001, U1303301); the National Key Research and Development Plan (2016YFC0503307); by a Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) Ph.D. grant SFRH/BD/75018/2010 (A.A.S) and Post-doctoral grant SFRH/BPD/123087/2016 (J.A.).
Keywords
Sexual segregation, Siberian Ibex (Capra sibirica), Mixed sex groups, social segregation, Sexual dimorphisim, ungulates
Citation
Wang, M., Alves, J., Alves da Silva, A., Yang, W., & Ruckstuhl, K. E. (2018). The effect of male age on patterns of sexual segregation in Siberian ibex. "Scientific Reports" (2018) 8: 13905. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31463-w