Humanly modified food distribution influences ‘aggressive’ behavior among elephants: research
Asian elephants exhibit many traits thought to be associated with low agonistic competition.
Human Modified Foods and Elephants: Herds of elephants compete more for food in human-created grasslands than in forests, even when the former has an abundance of food, according to a new study that highlights how human activities can have ecological impacts and influence animals’ social lives.
Asian elephants exhibit female-bonded groups (while males are largely solitary), with the most inclusive social unit being the clan – equivalent to a social group, band, troop, clan or community. Females within clans exhibit a fission-fusion dynamic, with clan members usually divided among multiple groups (or factions), whose group sizes and compositions can change over hours.
Asian elephants exhibit many traits thought to be associated with low agonistic competition. First, their primary food is a scattered, low-quality resource (grass and vegetative plant parts) and so is not expected to lead to competition. Their fission-fusion dynamic allows them to flexibly split into small groups and soften competition. They are not territorial, and their home ranges can overlap to a large extent, a trait that was expected to be associated with rare aggression during intergroup encounters.
Scientists from the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), an autonomous institution under the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, examined the influence of food distribution within and between group interactions in female-bonded animals such as elephants.
Dr. Hansraj Gautam and Prof. TNC Vidya followed elephant behavior data from the long-term Kabini Elephant Project, which was set up in 2009 to identify and study individual elephants, and investigated whether there are hostile interactions within the clan (agonism) and agonistic meetings between the clans. its speed and spread among elephants depends on the variation in grass abundance, grass distribution and group size of the elephants.
They reviewed data on elephant behavior from Kabini Grassland and the adjacent forest and found that competition between elephant herds is greater in food-abundant grasslands than in forests.
The findings of their study partially support the predictions of a social-ecological model, the Ecological Model of Female Social Relations (EMFSR), which posits that food distribution primarily determines competition (and physical conflict) between and within groups. More conflict is expected as there are abundant and clumped food resources that can be monopolized by groups or individuals.
The study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, which shows that increasing resource availability can have opposite effects than intended, is of great importance in the context of rapid anthropogenic changes in natural habitats, such as human interference in social systems of wild populations. .