Mother Knows Best: Dominant Females Determine Offspring Dispersal in Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
Helen M. Whiteside, Deborah A. Dawson, Carl D. Soulsbury, and Stephen Harris
Based on their 33 years of field study aided with DNA inputs, researchers Helen M. Whiteside, Deborah A. Dawson, Carl D. Soulsbury, and Stephen Harris have come to the conclusion that dominant mothers in urban fox (Vulpes vulpes) played a key role in shaping the group dynamics of the mammals. They decide which cubs get to stay and which ones must leave the group and find a new territory. This study is claimed to be the first study to identify the importance of juvenile dispersal among social mammals.
The researchers experienced lot of difficulty to work out family trees. Combining data collected in the field with DNA paternity testing allowed the team to overcome the difficulty.
The team worked out dispersal strategy based on the male cubs' genetic relationship with the dominant female. The researchers say it is an out-breeding mechanism, which stops them breeding with their mothers and cub dispersal appeared to be much more important for female foxes than males. The researchers say “Relatedness to the dominant male had no effect on dispersal in offspring of either sex, whereas there was a strong effect of relatedness to resident females on offspring dispersal independent of population density. Males with dominant mothers dispersed significantly more often than males with subordinate mothers, whereas dispersing females were significantly more likely to have subordinate mothers compared to philopatric females.”
The researchers sign off underlining the fact that their research provides a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of the key biological process of dispersal
The paper which appears in Plos One is an open access document
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