ArticleNature communications2021
An intergenerational androgenic mechanism of female intrasexual competition in the cooperatively breeding meerkat.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neuropeptide receptor distributions in male and femaleBiology letters · 2025Article
- Effects of maternal poor ovarian response on the reproductive endocrine profiles of the next generation: a prospective cohort study in China.Human reproduction open · 2025Article
- Maternal Androgens in Dominant Meerkats (Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- A female-biased gene expression signature of dominance in cooperatively breeding meerkats.Molecular ecology · 2024Article
- Androgen-mediated maternal effects and trade-offs: postnatal hormone development, growth, and survivorship in wild meerkats.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- Re-wilding model organisms: Opportunities to test causal mechanisms in social determinants of health and aging.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- An intergenerational androgenic mechanism of female intrasexual competition in the cooperatively breeding meerkat.Nature communications · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Female intrasexual competition can be intense in cooperatively breeding species, with some dominant breeders (matriarchs) limiting reproduction in subordinates via aggression, eviction or infanticide. In males, such tendencies bidirectionally link to testosterone, but in females, there has been little systematic investigation of androgen-mediated behaviour within and across generations. In 22 clans of wild meerkats (Suricata suricatta), we show that matriarchs 1) express peak androgen concentrations during late gestation, 2) when displaying peak feeding competition, dominance behaviour, and evictions, and 3) relative to subordinates, produce offspring that are more aggressive in early development. Late-gestation antiandrogen treatment of matriarchs 4) specifically reduces dominance behaviour, is associated with infrequent evictions, decreases social centrality within the clan, 5) increases aggression in cohabiting subordinate dams, and 6) reduces offspring aggression. These effects implicate androgen-mediated aggression in the operation of female sexual selection, and intergenerational transmission of masculinised phenotypes in the evolution of meerkat cooperative breeding.
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