A1 Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä lehdessä
Males have more aggressive and less sociable personalities than females in semi-captive Asian elephants
Tekijät: Martin W. Seltmann, Samuli Helle, Win Htut, Mirkka Lahdenperä
Kustantaja: Nature Publishing Group
Julkaisuvuosi: 2019
Journal: Scientific Reports
Tietokannassa oleva lehden nimi: Scientific reports
Lehden akronyymi: Sci Rep
Artikkelin numero: 2668 (2019)
Vuosikerta: 9
Numero: 1
Sivujen määrä: 7
ISSN: 2045-2322
eISSN: 2045-2322
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39915-7
Rinnakkaistallenteen osoite: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/39439637
Personality, i.e. consistent between-individual differences in behaviour, has been documented in many species. Yet little is known about how males and females of long-lived, highly social species differ in their measures of personality structure. We investigated sex differences in the mean, variance, and covariance of three previously reported personality traits (Attentiveness, Sociability, Aggressiveness) in 150 female and 107 male Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) from a semi-captive population in Myanmar. These three personality traits were obtained by performing exploratory factor analysis on 28 behavioural items that had been rated by experienced elephant handlers. We found that males scored significantly higher on Aggressiveness and tended to score lower on Sociability than females. However, no sex difference was found in the mean scores of Attentiveness. Variances for the three personality traits did not differ between the sexes, suggesting that male and female elephants share the same range of personality variation. Likewise, trait covariances were similar between the sexes. While both sexes show complex sociality in the wild, female Asian elephants typically live in highly social family units, whereas male elephants' social bonds are weaker. Males usually form dominance ranks by aggressive interactions, especially during musth. Our results on a large sample of individuals living in their natural environment are thus in agreement with elephant life-histories and parallel the findings of sex differences in other long-lived highly social species with similar life-histories.
Ladattava julkaisu This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |  |
