Abstract:
This thesis describes the first detailed quantitative study of female Asian elephant social
organisation in India. Social organisation may be shaped by ecological factors and
individual relationships, and understanding the relative roles of these factors in shaping
animal societies has long been a central objective of mammalian behavioural research
(Crook and Gartlan 1966, Clutton-Brock and Harvey 1977, Wrangham 1980). Individual
relationships may further depend on inclusive fitness benefits, direct fitness benefits, and
conflict from conspecifics. Using data collected over five years, between March 2009 and
July 2014, on identified females from Nagarahole and Bandipur National Parks (the Kabini
population; see Vidya et al. 2014) in southern India, I studied some aspects of the social
organisation of female Asian elephants and how they might be affected by ecological factors
or individual relationships. Elephants offer a superb system for investigating the role of
ecological factors and individual relationships on behaviour as they are socially advanced,
inhabit diverse habitats, and possibly offer an opportunity for kin selection. Female Asian
elephants live in matrilineal societies and show fission-fusion dynamics, which, in other
species allow community members to split away or associate together in groups of different
sizes in response to spatio-temporally varying resources. However, being long-lived species,
elephants have to be studied over a long period so that their societies can be properly
understood.
