Elephant 'pecking order' is established

BERKELEY, Calif., Oct. 30 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led international study has discovered social standing influences the movement of elephants, especially when resources become scarce.

The study -- led by ecologists at the University of California-Berkeley -- analyzed the social dominance relationships and roaming patterns of free-ranging elephants in the Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves in northern Kenya. Researchers discovered elephants led by older, more dominant matriarchs traveled significantly fewer miles to seek food than did elephants lower in social standing.

During the dry season, when water and vegetation were harder to come by, dominant groups traveled an average 2-3 miles daily, about half the distance of subordinate groups that would trek 5-6 miles per day.

"This work shows, for the first time, the role social factors play in the dispersal of elephants in an ecosystem," said lead author George Wittemyer, a post-doctoral researcher at University of California-Berkeley's College of Natural Resources. "The findings have significant policy implications for how elephant populations are managed."

The study -- which included University of California-Berkeley Professor Wayne Getz, University of Oxford Professor Fritz Vollrath and Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of the Save the Elephants organization -- appears in the October issue of the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.