Interventions and the development of dominance relationships in female baboons

Dominance relationships between adult and adolescent female yellow baboons, Papio cynocephalus, were studied in Amboseli Park, Kenya. Adolescents attempted to become dominant to some females (called 'targeted females') while remaining subordinate to others. Agonistic relationship with targeted females passed through a sequence of stages before the younger female achieved dominance. An examination of nondyadic agonistic interactions revealed that adolescents frequently intervened against targeted females, but never against nontargeted females, and that others sometimes aided adolescents against targeted females, but aided nontargeted females against adolescents. Interveners were unrelated adult females and other adolescents as well as kin. Targeting was determined by birth rank (the rank of the adolescent's mother at the time of the adolescent's birth) and did not depend on interventions by the mother.