Shaking the myth: Body mass, @entity146 , steroid hormones, and social dominance in wild XXXX .

@entity2175 @entity251 @entity14085 @entity146 @entity19 @entity1175 @entity2819 @entity32113 @entity29347
UNASSIGNED: In social mammals, the position of a male in the group's hierarchy strongly affects his reproductive success. Since a high social rank is often gained through competition with other males, selection should favour bigger males over smaller ones. We may therefore predict faster growth and/or delayed sexual @entity2175 in dominant males. Likewise, dominants should have higher levels of @entity251 , hormone important in many aspects of male dominance. Less obvious is the relationship between dominance and levels of @entity2819 but generally higher concentrations are expected in subordinate individuals. We studied body growth, sexual maturation and endocrinal changes in males of two @entity19 , raised in fraternal pairs. Since @entity32113 is the subspecies which dominates mutual encounters with @entity29347 we predicted higher growth rate, delayed @entity1175 and @entity146 , and higher @entity251 and @entity2819 levels in domesticus males compared to musculus. In all comparisons, no differences were found between dominant and subordinate musculus brothers. On the other hand, in M. @entity14085 , dominant males revealed a different growth trajectory and lower @entity2819 levels than subordinate males but not delayed @entity1175 and higher @entity251 concentrations, thus contradicting our predictions. In inter-subspecific comparisons, musculus males matured earlier but became @entity146 at the same time as domesticus males. The musculus @entity251 ontogeny suggests that social positions in this subspecies remain unfixed for an extended period and that the increasing levels probably reflect prolonged hierarchy contests. It appears that the ontogeny of behaviour and physiological traits diverge cryptically between the two subspecies.
