Highlights
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- Capture methods and genetics reveal female bias in dispersal in slender mongoose.
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- All females disperse, 93% of males are philopatric according to parentage analysis.
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- Males are more closely related to males within the same spatial group than outside.
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- Females are equally unrelated to females inside or outside their spatial group.
Sex-biased
dispersal is common in most mammals, but a female bias is less so and
exceptionally rare in solitary mammals. Here we present genetic and
observational evidence for strong female-biased dispersal in a solitary
foraging small carnivore, the slender mongoose. We suggest that females
benefit from dispersal by avoiding kin competition over local resources
and inbreeding, while males can benefit from philopatry through kin
cooperation leading to an increased success in female defence. The
comparison between our observations and those of a previous study in
Tanzania suggest that there is ecologically influenced flexibility in
dispersal patterns within this species, influencing sex-specific
benefits of dispersal and philopatry. Comparing our results with those
on the closely related, more social mongoose species in which both sexes
commonly disperse suggests that dispersal patterns are linked to a
species' social system by the opportunity, or lack of it, in philopatry
to obtain unrelated mating partners and gain indirect fitness benefits.
Keywords
- female-biased dispersal;
- female inbreeding avoidance;
- Galerella sanguinea;
- male philopatry;
- slender mongoose;
- solitary mammal
Copyright © 2015 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
