Hey folks! My name is Eli, I’m a 3rd year PhD
student and a recent arriver in Fisi camp (I'm writing under Tracy's name until I get access as an official poster). It isn’t my first time in here in
the Mara; I worked as an RA in Talek during 2011-2012, and I must shamefully
admit that I didn’t do much blogging during that year. This year I promise I
will do better! I’m incredibly excited to be back in the Mara and to get a
chance to experience both sides of the park more fully over the next year. My plan is to spend time in both Talek and Serena
camps doing a few experiments looking at social behavior in adults and cubs of
different clans.
I regret to inform you that today’s post will not be about
hyenas (bad start, right?). Those of you who are long-term readers of the blog
may recognize this, however:
Ali (a lion researcher from Craig Packer’s lab) sets up two stuffed lions in Talek territory in 2012. Photo by Steph Dloniak |
These are two stuffed lions on loan
to us from Craig Packer’s lion research lab out of the University of Minnesota.
With these lions, Packer and his student
Peyton West investigated hypotheses concerning the function of the iconic mane
of male lions. The most widely held
hypothesis about the function of the lion’s mane was that it protects males
from neck injuries during aggressive interactions. West and Packer found,
however, that injuries to the neck area were not more frequent than injuries to
other areas, and neck injuries were also no more likely to be fatal than other
injuries. These findings suggest that the mane isn’t functioning as a shield. If it were, it would protect a highly targeted or vulnerable area!
Packer's dummies outfitted with variously colored and sized manes. Photo from the Packer lab. |
West and Packer next investigated
the hypothesis that the lion’s mane is a trait that signals a male's quality. To do this, they acquired
life sized stuffed lions with removable manes. They
presented dummy males with different manes to real male and female lions and found
that both sexes responded quite differently depending on the size and color of
the lion dummy’s mane. Males were more likely to approach males with shorter and
blonder manes, suggesting that they found them less threatening. Likewise,
females were more likely to approach males with dark manes, suggesting that
they found the more attractive. The findings support the conclusion that the mane is less of a shield and more of a signal of male quality. Pretty cool! If you are interested in reading more about
these experiments check out their paper in Science
in which they discuss the how climate change could affect mane size and color and its function as a sexual signal.
Here a male lion cautiously approaches one of the dummies in Packer and West’s experiment on mane function. From supporting materials of “Sexual Selection, Temperature, and the Lion’s Mane” published in Science in August 2002.
These lions
should look familiar to some of you because in 2012 we briefly borrowed the
lions to try out some experiments in which we were looking at the coordinated
mobbing behavior hyenas display when they cooperate to fight with lions over
control of a carcass. Kay wrote a blog post about these set of experiments,
but the short version of the story is that we saw some pretty interesting stuff
but none of the intense mobbing behavior we were hoping to observe.
Hyenas from the Talek clan warily approach the dummies during the mobbing experiments conducted in 2012. Photo taken by Steph Dloniak. |
Now we have borrowed the lions again to do some related
experiments, which Tracy, Kenna and I will be collaborating on over the next
year. We will investigate
the conditions under which different hyenas either decide to recruit help
in fighting with lions over a carcass or instead choose to sneakily steal some of the food all on their own. Stay tuned for updates on how it goes, but
for now enjoy some photos of the old girl in action!
1 comment:
I sooooo wish I could be there! This should be a very interesting year for you guys, please keep us posted.
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