Male alliance behaviour and mating access varies with habitat in a dolphin social network

Within-species variation in social structure has attracted interest recently because of the potential to explore phenotypic plasticity and, specifically, how demographic and ecological variation influence social structure. Populations of bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops spp.) vary in male alliance formation, from no alliances to simple pairs to, in Shark Bay, Western Australia, the most complex nested alliances known outside of humans. Examination...