title: Social rank, stress, fitness, and life expectancy in wild rabbits.
abstract: Wild rabbits of the two sexes have separate linear rank orders, which are established and maintained by intensive fights. The social rank of individuals strongly influence their fitness: males and females that gain a high social rank, at least at the outset of their second breeding season, have a much higher lifetime fitness than subordinate individuals. This is because of two separate factors: a much higher fecundity and annual reproductive success and a 50% longer reproductive life span. These results are in contrast to the view in evolutionary biology that current reproduction can be increased only at the expense of future survival and/or fecundity. These concepts entail higher physiological costs in high-ranking mammals, which is not supported by our data: In wild rabbits the physiological costs of social positions are caused predominantly by differential psychosocial stress responses that are much lower in high-ranking than in low-ranking individuals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Physiology, University of Bayreuth, Germany.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: von Holst
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hutzelmeyer
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kaetzke
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khaschei
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schönheiter
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild; D005260:Female; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D011817:Rabbits / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D012098:Reproduction; D013315:Stress, Psychological