Kirk, Jacqui, and Claudia A. F. Wascher. “Temporal Modification of Social Interactions in Response to Changing Group Demographics and Offspring Maturation in African Lions (Panthera Leo).” Behavioural Processes, vol. 157, Dec. 2018, pp. 519–527. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2018.06.006.
I found the above cited article through Academic Search Complete, the keywords I used to find this article were, “lion” AND “social behavior”. This article talks about the change in social behaviour of offspring of the African Lions, due to changing group demographics. This article is authored by Jacqui Kirk and Claudia A.F. Wascher, members of the Behavioural Ecology Research Groups from the Department of Biology at Anglia Ruskin University, UK.
For the purpose of this study, two prides of lions, namely, Dambwa and Ngamo, were released into respective sites and their females (post birth) implanted with contraceptive implants to down-regulate reproduction. After this was complete, the greetings of each member of the respective prides was recorded by research technicians. Using this method, the researchers were able to find the change behavioural patterns as the lion cubs grew older.
The study revealed that before the birth of the cubs the females had denser interaction, compared to that after birth. The number of interactions between females grew higher as the cubs grew older, but the number of greetings from cubs to adults lowered as the cubs came of age. In simple words, the study revealed that as the cubs were born, female interaction lowered as a result of competition and safety of cubs, but as the cubs grew older, the number of interaction grew back to normal. but , the interaction between the cubs and the adults lowered as the cubs, as they grew older, were competition for the existing adults.
This study reveals that though the lions are social beings, they are highly competitive in nature.
YeakeI, Justin D., et al. “Cooperation and Individuality among Man-Eating Lions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 106, no. 45, Nov. 2009, pp. 19040–19043. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1073/pnas.0905309106.
The above cited article is authored by Justin D. Yeakel, Bruce D. Patterson, Kena Fox-Dobbs, Mercedes M. Okumura, Thure E. Cerling, Jonathan W. Moore, Paul L. Koch, and Nathaniel J. Dominy. The keywords I used to find this article were “lions” AND “social behavior” AND “cooperation”.
This article is about two lions from Tsavo, who cooperatively killed 28 people (later revised to 135 kills). The method of the study was to analyse the tooth and bone collagen of the two lions post mortem. This method was successful as the bone tissue regenerate at a slow pace and hence reveal the food intake pattern for over 8 years of the animals life.
This study revealed the man eating behaviour of lions, as the study revealed that the two lions had eaten from about 4-72 humans in their lifetimes. This revealed that if the habitat and environment change, the lions can resort to hunting humans due to lack of prey.
This study tells us about the cooperative behavior of lions as well as how they adapt to changes in their environment.
This activity has helped me learn how to use the UCI Library tools and helped me find potential articles for my research on the Lions. I have learned how Academic Search Complete is indeed and 'complete' tool for research purposes, and how the use of keywords and boolean operators refines search results
Hi Harsh, I love your research topic about lion and their behaviors. Many psychologists still doubt if animal behaviors are conditioned and reinforced, however, by studying behaviors on wild animals like lions, there should be no doubt about how their behaviors are developed.
Hi Harsh, the second article was astonishing and frightening, and I enjoyed reading it. Since I did similar research on tiger attack, the lion attack absolutely shocks me more in that how they cooperatively prey on human.