08-12-2024

Male and female lions have different social strategies for survival

Earth.com staff writer

New research from the University of Oxford has revealed significant differences in how male and female wild lions experience changes in their social networks as they age, and these differences may have a profound impact on their survival.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, provides new insights into the emerging field of social aging, which examines how individuals’ social behavior evolves with age and the consequences this has for various aspects of their lives.

Among big cats, African lions (Panthera leo) are unique in their heavy reliance on social relationships for essential activities, including hunting, territory defense, and raising cubs.

Despite this, until now, it was not well understood how a lion’s social connections change over time and what implications these changes might have for their survival and overall well-being.

This study is the first to investigate social aging in wild lions, taking into account both sexes and spanning multiple generations.

The research is based on an extensive dataset compiled over 30 years, involving more than 150,000 field observations of 665 individual lions in the Serengeti, collected by the Serengeti Lion Project from 1984 to 2013.

The findings reveal distinct patterns in how social connections evolve with age for male and female lions. For female lions, their connections to males are strongest in midlife, after which they gradually weaken as the females age.

In contrast, their connections to other females steadily decline from early adulthood onwards. This decline in female-to-female social connectivity suggests that as female lions grow older, they become less socially integrated within their pride.

Male lions, on the other hand, exhibit a different pattern. Their social connections to other males are weakest during midlife but strengthen again as they age.

Males’ connections to females, however, are strongest during midlife and weakest at the beginning and end of their lives. These shifting social dynamics reflect the complex and competitive nature of male lion life, where alliances and rivalries can change rapidly.

The study highlights the critical role that these social connections play in the survival of lions. For female lions, maintaining strong connections with “friends” is crucial for a longer life.

The researchers found that females with stronger social bonds tend to live longer, likely because these connections provide protection and support in critical activities such as defending territory, rearing cubs, and cooperative hunting.

“The importance of close female bonds, particularly in early adulthood, could be because ‘friends’ can help protect against threats such as infanticidal males,” explained lead author Lauren Rudd from the Department of Biology at Oxford.

“They could also be valuable allies for territory defense, hunting, and cub rearing – all of which require cooperation. Combined these factors potentially explain why better-connected females live longer.”

For male lions, however, it is not just the strength but the number of social connections that appears to be key for survival.

The study suggests that having a larger number of associates is associated with a longer lifespan in males. This may be because a broad social network provides males with greater opportunities to form coalitions, which are vital for acquiring and maintaining dominance and access to mates.

Broader implications of the study

The implications of these findings extend beyond understanding lion behavior. The researchers pointed out that changes in sociality based on age and sex could have significant consequences for the dynamics of disease outbreaks in wild lion populations.

Rudd noted that while aging females may be less exposed to pathogens as their social connections decline, aging males’ exposure risk could increase as they gain new associates. This insight could be critical for wildlife management and conservation efforts, particularly in predicting and controlling disease transmission in lion populations.

This study marks an important step forward in the field of social aging, but there is still much more to learn. The researchers are now focusing on how the loss of social connections throughout a lion’s life influences their behavior and position within their social network.

This ongoing research aims to uncover the underlying mechanisms of social aging and to understand how the death or departure of certain individuals affects the social structure and dynamics of the remaining population.

“Natural animal populations, where many individuals are being simultaneously monitored in detail across their entire lives and across many generations, offer unique opportunities to better understand social aging and how this process operates across many different types of societies,” said co-author Josh Firth from the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds.

This work on lions could pave the way for similar studies in other wild animal societies, helping to reveal how different sex roles influence social aging across various species.

The research underscores the complex interplay between social behavior and survival, providing valuable insights into the life dynamics of one of the most socially intricate big cats in the wild. As scientists continue to explore these patterns, our understanding of social aging and its broader implications for animal populations will undoubtedly deepen.