Shivani, Elise Huchard, Dieter LukasPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
<p>Life in social groups, while potentially providing social benefits, inevitably leads to conflict among group members. In many social mammals, such conflicts lead to the formation of dominance hierarchies, where high-ranking individuals consistently outcompete other group members. Given that competition is a fundamental tenet of the theory of natural selection, it is generally assumed that high-ranking individuals have higher reproductive success than lower-ranking individuals. Previous reviews have indicated large variation across populations on the potential effect of dominance rank on reproductive success in female mammals. Here, we propose to perform a meta-analysis based on 444 effect sizes from 187 studies on 86 mammal species to determine whether (1) dominance rank is generally positively associated with reproductive success and whether the approach different studies have taken to answer this question influences the strength of the effect, (2) whether life-history mechanisms might mediate the relationship between rank and reproductive success, (3) whether high-ranking females are more likely to have higher success when resources are limited, and (4) whether the social environment might mitigate rank differences on reproductive success. This preregistration lays out the background, objective, predictions we will test, and proposed methods for our study.</p>
dominance, hierarchy, females, mammals, meta-analysis, reproductive skew
Behaviour & Ethology, Meta-analyses, Preregistrations, Social structure, Zoology
