Cynthia J. Moss
African Wildlife Foundation
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Featured researches published by Cynthia J. Moss.
Journal of Zoology | 2001
Cynthia J. Moss
This paper presents basic demographic parameters of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) living in and around Amboseli National Park, Kenya. The study was conducted from 1972 to the present and results are based on the histories of 1778 individually known elephants. From 1972 to 1978, the Amboseli elephant population declined and then increased steadily from 1979 to the present. Births occurred throughout the year but over 80% occurred between November and May. Birth rate varied from year to year with a pattern of peaks and troughs at 4- to 5-year intervals. The birth sex ratio did not differ significantly from 1:1. Mean age at first birth was 14.1 years, determined from a sample of 546 known-age females. Mean birth interval (n= 732) was 4.5 years for 255 females. Fecundity and calf survival varied by age of the females. Mortality fluctuated from year to year. Sex-specific mortality rates were consistently higher for males than females at all ages.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences | 2006
Elizabeth A. Archie; Cynthia J. Moss; Susan C. Alberts
Many social animals live in stable groups. In contrast, African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) live in unusually fluid, fission–fusion societies. That is, ‘core’ social groups are composed of predictable sets of individuals; however, over the course of hours or days, these groups may temporarily divide and reunite, or they may fuse with other social groups to form much larger social units. Here, we test the hypothesis that genetic relatedness predicts patterns of group fission and fusion among wild, female African elephants. Our study of a single Kenyan population spans 236 individuals in 45 core social groups, genotyped at 11 microsatellite and one mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) locus. We found that genetic relatedness predicted group fission; adult females remained with their first order maternal relatives when core groups fissioned temporarily. Relatedness also predicted temporary fusion between social groups; core groups were more likely to fuse with each other when the oldest females in each group were genetic relatives. Groups that shared mtDNA haplotypes were also significantly more likely to fuse than groups that did not share mtDNA. Our results suggest that associations between core social groups persist for decades after the original maternal kin have died. We discuss these results in the context of kin selection and its possible role in the evolution of elephant sociality.
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology | 1988
Joyce H. Poole; Katherine Payne; William R. Langbauer; Cynthia J. Moss
SummarySeveral types of low frequency calls made by African elephants, Loxodonta africana, and the contexts in which they occurred are described. These calls had fundamental frequencies ranging from 14–35 Hz and sound pressure levels as high as 103±3dB (re 20 μPa) at 5 m from the source. Very low frequency sounds are subject to very little environmental attenuation, suggesting that sounds at the frequencies and sound pressure levels measured from elephants may be audible to conspecifics several km away. Long-term records on the behavior of elephants and on the contexts of specific call types suggest that elephants make use of infrasound in the spatial coordination of groups and as they search for mates.
Animal Behaviour | 2006
Elizabeth A. Archie; Thomas A. Morrison; Charles Foley; Cynthia J. Moss; Susan C. Alberts
Socioecological models of the evolution of female-bonded societies predict a relation between resource distribution and the nature of female affiliative and dominance relationships. Species that mainly rely on abundant, widely distributed resources, like African savanna elephants, are predicted to have unresolved dominance hierarchies and poorly differentiated female social relationships. Contrary to this prediction, female elephants have well-differentiated social relationships; however, little is known about the nature of their dominance rank relationships. Here we present the first quantitative analysis of dominance relationships within ‘family’ groups of adult female elephants in two wild populations: one in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, and another in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania. We tested three possibilities, that female elephants: (1) are egalitarian, (2) have linear, nepotistic hierarchies, or (3) have linear age/size-ordered hierarchies. Our results best support the third outcome: dominance rank relationships were transitive within families and highly asymmetrical within dyads, such that older, larger females consistently dominated smaller, younger females. We discuss the implications of this result for understanding the evolution of female social relationships.
Animal Behaviour | 2007
Julie A. Hollister-Smith; Joyce H. Poole; Elizabeth A. Archie; Eric A. Vance; Nicholas J. Georgiadis; Cynthia J. Moss; Susan C. Alberts
Male African elephants experience intense intrasexual selection in gaining access to oestrous females, who represent a very scarce and highly mobile resource. An unusual combination of behavioural and physiological traits in males probably reflects this intense selection pressure. Males show prolonged growth, growing throughout much or perhaps all of their long life span (ca. 60e65 years), and they show musth, a physiological and behavioural condition exclusive to elephants, which is manifested by bouts of elevated testosterone and aggression and heightened sexual activity. Most observed matings are by males over 35 years of age and in musth, suggesting that age and musth are both important factors contributing to male reproductive success. Here we report the results of a genetic paternity analysis of a well-studied population of wild African elephants. Patterns of paternity for 119 calves born over a 22-year period showed significant effects of both age and musth on paternity success. Among males in musth, paternity success increased significantly with age until the very oldest age classes, when it modestly declined. When not in musth, males experienced relatively constant, low levels of paternity success at all ages. Thus, despite the importance of both musth and age in determining male paternity success, adult males both in and out of musth, and of all ages, produced calves. In general, however, older males had markedly elevated paternity success compared with younger males, suggesting the possibility of sexual selection for longevity in this species.
Molecular Ecology | 2007
Elizabeth A. Archie; Julie A. Hollister-Smith; Joyce H. Poole; Phyllis C. Lee; Cynthia J. Moss; Jesús E. Maldonado; Robert C. Fleischer; Susan C. Alberts
The costs of inbreeding depression, as well as the opportunity costs of inbreeding avoidance, determine whether and which mechanisms of inbreeding avoidance evolve. In African elephants, sex‐biased dispersal does not lead to the complete separation of male and female relatives, and so individuals may experience selection to recognize kin and avoid inbreeding. However, because estrous females are rare and male–male competition for mates is intense, the opportunity costs of inbreeding avoidance may be high, particularly for males. Here we combine 28 years of behavioural and demographic data on wild elephants with genotypes from 545 adult females, adult males, and calves in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, to test the hypothesis that elephants engage in sexual behaviour and reproduction with relatives less often than expected by chance. We found support for this hypothesis: males engaged in proportionally fewer sexual behaviours and sired proportionally fewer offspring with females that were natal family members or close genetic relatives (both maternal and paternal) than they did with nonkin. We discuss the relevance of these results for understanding the evolution of inbreeding avoidance and for elephant conservation.
Current Biology | 2007
Lucy A. Bates; Katito Sayialel; Norah Njiraini; Cynthia J. Moss; Joyce H. Poole; Richard W. Byrne
Animals can benefit from classifying predators or other dangers into categories, tailoring their escape strategies to the type and nature of the risk. Studies of alarm vocalizations have revealed various levels of sophistication in classification. In many taxa, reactions to danger are inflexible, but some species can learn the level of threat presented by the local population of a predator or by specific, recognizable individuals. Some species distinguish several species of predator, giving differentiated warning calls and escape reactions; here, we explore an animals classification of subgroups within a species. We show that elephants distinguish at least two Kenyan ethnic groups and can identify them by olfactory and color cues independently. In the Amboseli ecosystem, Kenya, young Maasai men demonstrate virility by spearing elephants (Loxodonta africana), but Kamba agriculturalists pose little threat. Elephants showed greater fear when they detected the scent of garments previously worn by Maasai than by Kamba men, and they reacted aggressively to the color associated with Maasai. Elephants are therefore able to classify members of a single species into subgroups that pose different degrees of danger.
Molecular Ecology | 2008
Elizabeth A. Archie; Jesús E. Maldonado; Julie A. Hollister-Smith; Joyce H. Poole; Cynthia J. Moss; Robert C. Fleischer; Susan C. Alberts
Nonrandom patterns of mating and dispersal create fine‐scale genetic structure in natural populations — especially of social mammals — with important evolutionary and conservation genetic consequences. Such structure is well‐characterized for typical mammalian societies; that is, societies where social group composition is stable, dispersal is male‐biased, and males form permanent breeding associations in just one or a few social groups over the course of their lives. However, genetic structure is not well understood for social mammals that differ from this pattern, including elephants. In elephant societies, social groups fission and fuse, and males never form permanent breeding associations with female groups. Here, we combine 33 years of behavioural observations with genetic information for 545 African elephants (Loxodonta africana), to investigate how mating and dispersal behaviours structure genetic variation between social groups and across age classes. We found that, like most social mammals, female matrilocality in elephants creates co‐ancestry within core social groups and significant genetic differentiation between groups (ΦST = 0.058). However, unlike typical social mammals, male elephants do not bias reproduction towards a limited subset of social groups, and instead breed randomly across the population. As a result, reproductively dominant males mediate gene flow between core groups, which creates cohorts of similar‐aged paternal relatives across the population. Because poaching tends to eliminate the oldest elephants from populations, illegal hunting and poaching are likely to erode fine‐scale genetic structure. We discuss our results and their evolutionary and conservation genetic implications in the context of other social mammals.
Animal Behaviour | 2011
Patrick I. Chiyo; Elizabeth A. Archie; Julie A. Hollister-Smith; Phyllis C. Lee; Joyce H. Poole; Cynthia J. Moss; Susan C. Alberts
Strong social bonds are uncommon among male mammals. In many mammals, however, males form all-male groups, providing opportunities for male–male bonds to emerge. We examined association patterns of male African elephants, Loxodonta africana, in all-male groups and assessed the influence of age and genetic relatedness on these associations. We also examined the influence of age and genetic relatedness on the choice of sparring partners in male elephants. Males had many weak and random associations and few valuable relationships. Male associations were positively correlated with genetic relatedness, suggesting that kinship influences patterns of male associations. Male associations were negatively correlated with age disparity, and males were more likely to spar with other males closer in age to themselves. These results suggest that males associate with other males of similar age in part because sparring may facilitate the development and maintenance of motor and psychological responses to sudden and unexpected events that occur during play; this may help prepare males for male–male competition. We also found that older males had high centrality and strength in social networks, suggesting that older males influence the cohesion of male social groups. Consequently, the elimination of older males from elephant populations by poachers or trophy hunters could negatively affect social cohesion in male elephant groups. Finally, we found that age and genetic relatedness were not significantly correlated, suggesting that male associations based on age and relatedness did not overlap. These findings highlight the complexity of male social relationships in all-male groups.
Science | 2010
Samuel K. Wasser; Joyce H. Poole; Phyllis C. Lee; Keith Lindsay; Andrew P. Dobson; John P. Hart; Iain Douglas-Hamilton; George Wittemyer; Petter Granli; Bethan J. Morgan; Jody Gunn; Susan C. Alberts; Rene L. Beyers; Patrick I. Chiyo; Harvey Croze; Richard Estes; Kathleen Gobush; Ponjoli Joram; Alfred Kikoti; Jonathan Kingdon; Lucy E. King; David W. Macdonald; Cynthia J. Moss; Benezeth Mutayoba; Steve Njumbi; Patrick Omondi; Katarzyna Nowak
Trade decisions made by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species must place science over politics. Tanzania and Zambia are petitioning the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to “downlist” the conservation status of their elephants to allow sale of stockpiled ivory. But just 2 years after CITES placed a 9-year moratorium on future ivory sales (1), elephant poaching is on the rise. The petitioning countries are major sources and conduits of Africas illegal ivory (2–4). The petitions highlight the controversy surrounding ivory trade (5) and broader issues underlying CITES trade decisions.