ArticleScience advances2020
Violent encounters between social units hinder the growth of a high-density mountain gorilla population.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dispersed female networks: female gorillas' inter-group relationships influence dispersal decisions.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Group traits moderate the relationship between individual social traits and fitness in gorillas.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Dietary Variability Among Mountain Gorilla Groups Across Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- A brief history of primate research in the Ndoki forest.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Review
- Does kinship with the silverback matter? Intragroup social relationships of immature wild western lowland gorillas after social upheaval.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- Lethal combats in the forest among wild western gorillas.iScience · 2024Article
- Cumulative early-life adversity does not predict reduced adult longevity in wild gorillas.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- Ecological drivers of helminth infection patterns in the Virunga Massif mountain gorilla population.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2022Article
- Population dynamics of western gorillas at Mbeli Bai.PloS one · 2022Article
- Exploring the potential effect of COVID-19 on an endangered great ape.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Rapid transmission of respiratory infections within but not between mountain gorilla groups.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Heterogeneity in patterns of helminth infections across populations of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei).Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Chest beats as an honest signal of body size in male mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei).Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Density-dependent processes such as competition for resources, migration, predation, and disease outbreaks limit the growth of natural populations. The analysis of 50 years of mountain gorilla data reveals that social behavior changes observed at high group density may also affect population growth in social species. A sudden increase in social group density observed in 2007 caused a threefold increase in the rate of violent encounters between social units (groups and solitary males). A fivefold increase in the rate of infanticide and seven cases of lethal fights among mature males were subsequently recorded, and the annual subpopulation growth rate declined by half between 2000 and 2017. The increase in infanticide alone explains 57% of this decline. These findings highlight the complex relationship between population density and growth in social species and hold important implications for the management of island populations.
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Registered trials
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