title: Evidence of a dominance hierarchy in captive Caribbean flamingos and its relation to pair bonding and physiological measures of health.
abstract: Caribbean flamingo social structure, how pair bonds affect the structure of the flock, and how social stress affects health measured by heterophil to lymphocyte ratios (H/L) were investigated at the Philadelphia Zoo. It was hypothesized that a hierarchy may become apparent by analyzing agonistic interactions and that paired individuals would share similar places within the hierarchy. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that a negative relationship between H/L ratio and dominance would exist. Forty observations were conducted and in 70% of interactions instigating bird(s) won the encounter, suggesting either some advantage for instigating birds or a prior expectation of an encounter's outcome based upon an understanding of the flock's hierarchy. The flock possessed a semi-linear hierarchy (in terms of wins/losses) and birds with higher pair-bond strengths maintained dominant positions, suggesting that pair-bonding may help individuals become more successful in agonistic encounters. Birds who won more often had higher lymphocytes percentages and analyses suggested a trend indicating dominant birds may be less stressed. A semi-linear hierarchy was also found in terms of initiation/being targeted, and a bird's rank on the dominance (wins/losses) and initiate/target hierarchies were positively correlated, suggesting that subdominant birds were targeted by dominant birds more frequently than vice versa.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Saint Joseph's University, USA. Electronic address: royer.erica@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Erica A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Royer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Saint Joseph's University, USA. Electronic address: mander06@sju.edu.
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Anderson
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D000836:Animals, Zoo; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D001717:Birds / Q000502:physiology; D006304:Health Status; D010152:Pair Bond; D012930:Social Dominance; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology
keywords: Caribbean flamingos; Dominance hierarchy; H/L ratio