Abstract

FUENTES-GONZALEZ, Jesualdo Arturo  and  MUNOZ-DURAN, Joao. Social behavior and feeding preferences in the evolution of extant canids. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2017, vol.88, n.1, pp.192-206. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmb.2017.01.022.

Sociality in carnivorans seems to have evolved as a strategy for preying on big mammals and enhancing intraguild competition. In canids, the relationship between high sociality levels and hypercarnivory has been widely discussed, but there are few attempts for testing it in a phylogenetic context. As a result, there are still doubts regarding the relationship between diet and sociality; particularly if variation in the latter is associated with trophic pressures. Here, we test if social behavior and feeding preferences are associated in extant canids, and establish how this relationship is in terms of the variability of both traits and their transition tendencies. We obtained information about diet and sociality after literature review, and tested their association with phylogenetic comparative methods. Cladistic and probabilistic approaches indicate a direct relationship between higher carnivory and higher sociality. Our results also indicate that social behavior tends to evolve first, and that carnivorous preferences are more likely to evolve under social evolutionary contexts.

Keywords : Canidae; Caninae; Carnivory; Diet; Correlated evolution; Hypercarnivory; Phylogenetic comparative methods; Sociality.