Social learning about novel foods in young meerkats

In many cooperatively breeding species, dominant females suppress reproduction in subordinates. Although it is commonly assumed that aggression from dominant females plays a role in reproductive suppression, little is known about the distribution of aggressive interactions. Here, we investigate the distribution of aggressive and submissive interactions among female meerkats (Suricata suricatta). In this species, dominant females produce more than 80% of the litters, but older subordinates occasionally breed. Dominant females commonly kill the pups of subordinates and usually evict older female subordinates from the group 1–3 weeks before the birth of the dominant female’s litter. The aggression frequency of the dominant female toward subordinates and the submission frequency that each subordinate female showed to the dominant female increased as the age of the subordinate female increased and as the birth of the dominant female’s pups approached. Moreover, as birth approached, both of these behaviors intensified more quickly between the dominant female and older subordinates than between the dominant female and younger subordinates. The aggression frequency of the dominant female