Keren Klass
(M.A. Conservation Biology, in progress)

Dominance relationships and hierarchy among wild blue monkeys

Much of what is currently known about dominance ranks, behavior and hierarchies (“dominance systems”) in female primates comes from the Cercopithecinae, but even within this sub-family there remains a strong phylogenetic bias in the data with most studies focusing on baboons, vervet monkeys and certain macaques. Blue monkeys belong to a group, the forest-dwelling guenons, that remains under-represented in the emerging collective picture of dominance systems in primates. Of the ~23 known species of forest guenon, dominance hierarchies and related behavior have been investigated in only four and, of these, only C.m. stuhlmanni and C. m. erythrarchus have been studied in the wild.

My study aims to characterize the dominance relationships and hierarchy in a wild population of blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis stuhlmanni), in the Kakamega Forest, Kenya, and evaluate both the resemblance to other cercopithecine species and whether this system fits into existing predictive frameworks. Earlier studies of this population incorporated elements of agonistic behavior and dominance but this is the first comprehensive characterization of this species’ dominance system. I am using an extensive data set encompassing multiple groups and multiple years (1993-2009) to characterize dominance interactions and hierarchies and examine hierarchies for linearity and stability over time; rates of agonism; determinants of rank position within the hierarchy; ontogeny of rank; the effects of group fission on agonism and hierarchy stability; and intraspecific variation in all of these characteristics.




Publications (from undergraduate work):
1.    Ashkenazi, S., K. Klass, H.K. Mienis, B. Spiro, R. Abel. 2009. Fossil embryos and adult Viviparidae from the Early-Middle Pleistocene of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel: ecology, longevity and fecundity. Lethaia (online Early View: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122465694/PDFSTART)
2.    Seifan, M., A. Gilad, K. Klass, Y.L. Werner. 2009.  Ontogenetically stable dimorphism in a lacertid lizard (Acanthodactylus boskianus) with tests of methodology and comments on life-history. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 97(2): 275-288.