Who’s the boss? Why female meerkats come out on top

A new study by the Kalahari Meerkat project of the University of Cambridge shows that female meerkats fight more than their male counterparts for dominance.

In most animals, females invest more in raising offspring, with the result that males compete intensely to gain access to fertile females.

However, meerkats provide an exception to this rule. In meerkat colonies a single Alpha female mates with a single dominant male while the rest of the group cares for their pups. Unusually, meerkat females compete more intensely than males, even though they contribute far more than males to parental duties.

To better understand the causes of this aggression, behavioural ecologist Professor Tim Clutton-Brock of the University of Cambridge, and his colleagues spent 13 years tracking meerkats in the Kalahari Desert. The researchers monitored 33 dominant females and 53 dominant males.

They identified the animals by markings on their fur, but data collection was aided by the fact that the meerkats became so tame that they could train them to walk on electronic scales to monitor their growth as well.

The study revealed that, compared with dominant males, dominant female meerkats produced twice as many pups during their time in the dominant position. Dominant females also remained dominant for nearly twice as long as dominant males.

This means that fewer females are likely to become dominant, so that each dominant position is worth more, hence the need to fight for it.

This may explain why dominant female meerkats possess traits which help them control other females. They are more than 10% heavier than subordinates, have three times as much testosterone, and are more frequently aggressive than subordinates or dominant males.

The study will provide a better explanation for why, like males, females in many species also evolve traits that allow them to compete with members of the same sex.