Male African elephants develop distinct personality traits as they age
Wild males show consistent individual differences in aggression, dominance and friendly behavior
PLOS
image:
A lower ranking male gives a ‘trunk-to-mouth’ salute to an older, higher-ranking individual. This greeting behavior is a very important ritual that serves to reinforce relationships between bonded individuals.
view moreCredit: O’Connell & Rodwell, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Male African elephants have distinct personality traits, but also adapt their behavior to suit the social context, according to a study publishing December 4, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell at Stanford University and Harvard University Center for the Environment, Jodie L. Berezin of Utopia Scientific, U.S., and colleagues.
Many animals show consistent individual differences in behavior, sometimes described as ‘personality’ or ‘temperament’. Elephants are highly intelligent and have rich social lives, and previous research has shown that captive elephants display distinct personality types. In the wild, females spend their entire lives in their family groups, but males disperse when they reach adulthood to join looser, all-male societies governed by dominance hierarchies.
To expand our understanding of personality traits in wild elephants, researchers observed the behavior of 34 male African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Etosha National Park in Namibia between 2007 and 2011. They identified five types of behavior that were consistently different between individuals, including aggression and dominance behaviors, friendly social interactions, and self-comforting. However, the elephant’s behavior was also influenced by the social context. When younger males were present, other males were more likely to perform friendly and dominance behaviors.
In contrast, when a socially influential male was present, the other males performed fewer friendly social interactions. The most dominant and socially influential male elephants in the society performed aggressive and friendly social behaviours equally frequently. Younger males were more similar in temperament than older males, suggesting that their unique personalities develop as they age.
The study is the first to show that adult male elephants display distinct personality traits in the wild. Although they showed consistency over time, male elephants were also flexible, adjusting their behavior depending on the social context. The results also suggest that the most socially successful male elephants are those that strike a balance between aggression and friendliness, and that having mixed age groups within male elephant populations was extremely important to their wellbeing. A deeper understanding of wild elephant behavior could inform better conservation decision-making and improve the management of captive elephants, the authors say.
The authors add: “Male elephants display five distinct character traits (affiliative, aggressive, dominant, anxious, and calm) consistently across time and context, and are also distinct from each other in how they display these five character-traits.”
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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0311780
Citation: O’Connell-Rodwell CE, Berezin JL, Kinzley C, Freeman PT, Sandri MN, Kieschnick D, et al. (2024) Consistency and flexibility of character in free-ranging male African elephants across time, age, and social contexts. PLoS ONE 19(12): e0311780. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311780
Author Countries: U.S.
Funding: Field work for this research was funded by Utopia Scientific Donor Volunteers and anonymous donors (support to CEO, JLB, CK, PTF, MNS, TCR). Specific individual support was provided by the Stanford University Vice Provost Office for Undergraduate Education Faculty and Student Grants (grants to CEO, PTF), the Smith College Horner Fund Endowment (grant to JLB), as well as the Oakland Zoo Conservation Fund (grant to CK and zoo volunteers). The Elephant Sanctuary provided salary support for the analysis of data related to this study (to MNS), as well as currently providing financial support for field work and sanctuary interns (to CEO and sanctuary employees). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Journal
PLOS ONE
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
Consistency and flexibility of character in free-ranging male African elephants across time, age, and social contexts
Article Publication Date
4-Dec-2024
Study reveals mammoth as key food source for ancient Americans
University of Alaska Fairbanks
image:
An artist’s reconstruction of Clovis life 13,000 years ago shows the Anzick-1 infant with his mother consuming mammoth meat near a hearth. Another individual crafts tools, including dart projectile points and atlatls. A mammoth butchery area is visible nearby. The scene is inspired by the La Prele mammoth site in Wyoming and set against the Montana landscape where the Anzick burial was discovered.
view moreCredit: Artist Eric Carlson created the scene in collaboration with archaeologists Ben Potter (UAF) and Jim Chatters (McMaster University).
Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food. Their research sheds new light on both the rapid expansion of humans throughout the Americas and the extinction of large ice age mammals.
The study, featured on the Dec. 4 cover of the journal Science Advances, used stable isotope analysis to model the diet of the mother of an infant discovered at a 13,000-year-old Clovis burial site in Montana. Before this study, prehistoric diet was inferred by analyzing secondary evidence, such as stone tools or the preserved remains of prey animals.
The findings support the hypothesis that Clovis people specialized in hunting large animals rather than primarily foraging for smaller animals and plants.
The Clovis people inhabited North America around 13,000 years ago. During that time period, animals like mammoths lived across both northern Asia and the Americas. They migrated long distances, which made them a reliable fat- and protein-rich resource for highly mobile humans.
“The focus on mammoths helps explain how Clovis people could spread throughout North America and into South America in just a few hundred years,” said co-lead author James Chatters of McMaster University.
“What's striking to me is that this confirms a lot of data from other sites. For example, the animal parts left at Clovis sites are dominated by megafauna, and the projectile points are large, affixed to darts, which were efficient distance weapons,” said co-lead author Ben Potter, an archaeology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Hunting mammoths provided a flexible way of life, Potter said. It allowed the Clovis people to move into new areas without having to rely on smaller, localized game, which could vary significantly from one region to the next.
“This mobility aligns with what we see in Clovis technology and settlement patterns,” Potter said. “They were highly mobile. They transported resources like toolstone over hundreds of miles.”
Researchers were able to model the Clovis people’s diet by first analyzing isotopic data published during earlier studies by other researchers of the remains of Anzick-1, an 18-month-old Clovis child. By adjusting for nursing, they were able to estimate values for his mother’s diet.
“Isotopes provide a chemical fingerprint of a consumer's diet and can be compared with those from potential diet items to estimate the proportional contribution of different diet items,” said Mat Wooller, an author on the study and director of the Alaska Stable Isotope facility at UAF.
The team compared the mother’s stable isotopic fingerprint to those from a wide variety of food sources from the same time period and region. They found that about 40% of her diet came from mammoth, with other large animals like elk and bison making up the rest. Small mammals, sometimes thought to have been an important food source, played a very minor role in her diet.
Finally, the scientists compared the mother’s diet to those of other omnivores and carnivores from the same time period, including American lions, bears and wolves. The mother’s diet was most similar to that of the scimitar cat, a mammoth specialist.
Findings also suggest that early humans may have contributed to the extinction of large ice age animals, especially as environmental changes reduced their habitats.
“If the climate is changing in a way that reduces the suitable habitat for some of these megafauna, then it makes them potentially more susceptible to human predation. These people were very effective hunters,” said Potter.
“You had the combination of a highly sophisticated hunting culture — with skills honed over 10,000 years in Eurasia — meeting naïve populations of megafauna under environmental stress,” said Chatters.
An important aspect of this research, according to Potter and Chatters, is their outreach to Native Americans in Montana and Wyoming about their concerns and interest in this work.
"It is important and ethical to consult with Indigenous peoples on questions relating to their heritage," they said.
They worked with Shane Doyle, executive director of Yellowstone Peoples, who reached out to numerous tribal government representatives throughout Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. “The response has been one of appreciative consideration and inclusion,” said Doyle.
"I congratulate the team for their astounding discovery about the lifeways of Clovis-era Native people and thank them for being tribally inclusive and respectful throughout their research,” he said. “This study reshapes our understanding of how Indigenous people across America thrived by hunting one of the most dangerous and dominant animals of the day, the mammoth."
Other authors of the paper include Stuart J. Fiedel, independent researcher; Juliet E. Morrow, University of Arkansas; and Christopher N. Jass, Royal Alberta Museum.
Journal
Science Advances
Article Title
Mammoth featured heavily in Western Clovis diet
Article Publication Date
4-Dec-2024
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