In many mammal species, androgen levels in males are elevated during periods of mating activity, often to facilitate aggressive behavior between males over access to fertile females. However, this pattern might be less ...

The phenotype of parents can have long-lasting effects on the development of offspring as well as on their behaviour, physiology and morphology as adults. In some cases, these changes may increase offspring fitness but, ...

The southern ground‐hornbill (SGH) is a cooperatively breeding bird endemic to eastern and southern Africa, but is endangered in its southern distributional range. The national conservation restoration program harvests ...

Steroid hormones play an important role in female reproductive physiology and behaviour and are often used to monitor important female reproductive events. However, such studies are often attempted on captive ...

One of the primary sources of perceived stress is the social environment of an animal and the interactions with conspecifics. An essential component of the response to a stressor is the activation of the hypothalamic–pit ...

In cooperative breeders, aggression from dominant breeders directed at subordinates may raise subordinate stress hormone (glucocorticoid) concentrations. This may benefit dominants by suppressing subordinate reproduction ...

Dominant females of cooperative breeding species often use aggression to suppress reproduction of subordinate females, resulting in subordinates experiencing stress-related increases in glucocorticoid levels, which may ...

Fission‐fusion social societies allow animals to respond in a flexible manner to environmental changes by adapting the size and composition of a group. Although group members change frequently in these systems, associations ...