Social organization in ungulates: Revisiting Jarman’s hypotheses

Ungulates (antelopes, deer and relatives) have some of the most diverse social systems among mammals. To understand evolution ungulate organization, Jarman (1974) proposed an ecological scenario how distribution resources, habitat feeding style may influenced organization. Although Jarman's makes intuitive sense remains a textbook example evolution, it has not been scrutinized using modern phylogenetic comparative methods. Here we use 230 species from ten families to test hypotheses analyses. Consistent with proposition, both predict group size, since grazing ungulates typically live in open habitats form large herds. Group turn, knock-on effect on mating sexual size dimorphism, that herds exhibit polygamy extensive dimorphism. Phylogenetic confirmatory path analyses suggest evolutionary changes type, body directly (or indirectly) induce shifts Taken together, these confirm conjectures, although they also uncover novel relationships between ecology Further studies are needed explore relevance for mammals beyond ungulates.