Institute of Zoology, University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover, Germany.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2013 Jan;150(1):158-64. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22189. Epub 2012 Nov 26.
Female dominance is a well-known trait of lemurs, although it has not been reported from all species and is still often unexplored, especially in the nocturnal species. We examined the intersexual dominance relationships in Microcebus ravelobensis, a congener of M. murinus who is well known for its female dominance. Given the many similarities in biology, it was predicted that M. ravelobensis should also possess female dominance. Seventeen unfamiliar male-female pairs were formed with animals captured in northwestern Madagascar and kept in a two-cage setting (one cage for each animal) for up to 1 week. Four encounter experiments were conducted with each pair. In contrast to the expectations, females were not consistently dominant over their male partners. Only 3 of 17 dyads developed a clear agonistic asymmetry, among which were two cases of male dominance and only one case of female dominance. Because body mass differences did not explain the findings, various other possible explanations are discussed. It is suggested that food may not be the driving factor of female dominance in mouse lemurs. Instead, it is hypothesized that species-specific differences in the quality of sleeping sites (i.e., tree holes) and in social grouping patterns may better explain why some mouse lemur species have female dominance, whereas others like the golden-brown mouse lemur do not. It is concluded thatthese arguments and hypotheses may even hold true for other solitary foragers and may thereby lead to a better understanding of the variable social evolution in lemurs and primates in general.
雌性优势是狐猴的一个众所周知的特征，尽管并非所有物种都有报道，而且这种现象仍然经常未被探索，尤其是在夜间活动的物种中。我们研究了 Microcebus ravelobensis 的雌雄间优势关系，该物种是 M. murinus 的近缘种，以其雌性优势而闻名。鉴于生物学上的许多相似之处，预计 M. ravelobensis 也应该具有雌性优势。我们将在马达加斯加西北部捕获的 17 对陌生的雌雄个体组合在一起，并将它们分别饲养在两个笼子中（每个笼子一只动物），饲养时间长达 1 周。对每对动物进行了 4 次遭遇实验。与预期相反，雌性并不总是对其雄性伴侣具有优势。在 17 对中，只有 3 对表现出明显的竞争不对称性，其中有 2 对是雄性优势，只有 1 对是雌性优势。由于体重差异并不能解释这些发现，因此还讨论了其他可能的解释。有人认为，食物可能不是雌性在鼠狐猴中具有优势的驱动因素。相反，有人假设，睡点（即树洞）的质量和社会群体模式的种间差异可能更好地解释为什么有些鼠狐猴物种具有雌性优势，而其他物种（如金棕色鼠狐猴）则没有。研究结论认为，这些论点和假设甚至可能适用于其他独居觅食者，并有助于更好地理解狐猴和灵长类动物中社会进化的可变性。
