Dominance (animal behavior)
For dominance in genetics see Dominance (genetics)
Dominance in animal behavior refers to an "individual's preferential access to resources over another."[1] The opposite of dominance is submissiveness, where one or more other individuals, react submissively to dominant individuals. The dominant individuals within a group obtain preferential access to resources such as food or potential mates at the expense of the submissive individuals, often without active aggression. The absence or reduction of aggression means unnecessary energy expenditure and the risk of injury are reduced for both.
Dominance may be a purely "two way" (dyadic) relationship, i.e. individual A is dominant over individual B, but this has no implications for whether either of these is dominant over a third individual C. Alternatively, dominance may be hierarchical, with a transitive relationship, so that if A dominates B and B dominates C, A always dominates C. This is called a linear dominance hierarchy. Some animal societies have despots, i.e. a single dominant individual with little or no hierarchical structure amongst the rest of the group. Horses use coalitions so that affiliated pairs in a herd have an accumulative dominance to displace a third horse that normally out-ranks both of them on an individual basis.[2]
