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Social preferences and interactions of common eland during parturition period
Staňková, Helena ; Komárková, Martina (advisor) ; Fuchs, Roman (referee)
Common elands (Taurotragus oryx) belong between the world's biggest antelopes. The basic social unit is created by several females with offspring, males are joining them only in the breeding period. There is a dominance hierarchy in a herd, which eliminates strong negative conflicts mainly between adult females. Except agonistic interactions, affiliative ones are taken place as well, which have positive impact on relationships in a herd. The aim of this work is t o summarize previous studies dealing with social structure and behaviour of common eland focusing on affiliative, maternal and agonistic interaction in a herd. Experimental part is focused on preferences of females for a choice of the closest companion, if the choice is influenced with age, kinship or maternal state of a female. Data were collected through direct observations of a herd of common elands on a farm Lány using 15 min scans of chosen females. Distances were measured between females and all the other herd members. Selected social behaviour of any two members of a herd was recorded using an all occurrence sampling method. The statistical analysis showed that the most (98,77 %) of interactions were negative, females preferred contactless agonistic interactions, threat and withdrawal. Allogrooming was more often found between a...
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