Eli Strauss: Exploring nepotistic societies with spotted hyenas (6 May 2025)

Описание: Title: Exploring nepotistic societies with spotted hyenas

Presenter: Eli Strauss

Institution: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Germany

Nepotistic societies are perplexing from an evolutionary perspective, because animals follow seemingly arbitrary systems of rank inheritance when theory suggests that they should instead compete for high social status. Even more mysterious is that these societies have evolved in the Cercopithecine monkeys and exactly one other species—the spotted hyena, a social carnivore with very different ecology and evolution. In this talk, I will unpack the structure and function of the nepotistic societies of spotted hyenas, with a focus on hierarchy dynamics as a point of leverage for revealing generative processes underlying these fascinating social structures.

Suggested readings:
Strauss ED, Shizuka D (2022). The dynamics of dominance: open questions, challenges, and solutions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B. 377: 20200445. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0445

Strauss ED, Holekamp KE. (2019) Social alliances improve rank and fitness in convention-based societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116: 8919–8924. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810384116  

Strauss ED (2023). Demographic turnover can be a leading driver of hierarchy dynamics, and social inheritance modifies its effects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B. 378: 20220308. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0308