Schaub H
Zoologisches Institut, Universität Zürich-Irchel, Switzerland.
J Comp Psychol. 1995 Jun;109(2):196-202. doi: 10.1037/0735-7036.109.2.196.
Dominant animals often can suppress the competitive behavior of subordinates by overt aggression or by their mere presence. This experiment on pairs of long-tailed macaque females explored whether this effect of dominant animals is influenced by interindividual distance. A dominant and a subordinate, but stronger, animal could compete for food by a tug-of-war on a bar. The animals were separated by 2 grids, spaced at either 30 or 100 cm. At 30 cm, 7 of 8 subordinate subjects either did not pull the bar or did not obtain a major share of the available food. In contrast, at 100 cm, all subordinate subjects obtained more food than the dominant. Thus, the dominant animals could suppress the competitive behavior of the subordinate only at the short interindividual distance, despite the fact that the dominant could not approach or attack even at the short distance and could be fully seen by the subordinate even at the large distance.
占主导地位的动物通常可以通过公然的攻击行为或仅仅是它们的存在来抑制从属动物的竞争行为。这项针对长尾猕猴雌性配对的实验探讨了占主导地位的动物的这种效应是否受到个体间距离的影响。一只占主导地位的动物和一只从属但更强壮的动物可以通过在一根杆子上拔河来争夺食物。动物们被两个间距为30厘米或100厘米的网格隔开。在30厘米的间距下，8只从属受试动物中有7只要么不拉动杆子，要么没有获得大部分可得食物。相比之下，在100厘米的间距下，所有从属受试动物获得的食物都比占主导地位的动物多。因此，占主导地位的动物只有在个体间距离较短时才能抑制从属动物的竞争行为，尽管事实上占主导地位的动物即使在短距离时也无法接近或攻击，并且即使在远距离时也能被从属动物完全看到。
