Live data from Hacker News

Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

theguardian.com

71–80 of 105 posts

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#71

Hasn’t the concept of alphas been discredited/debunked by the originator of the concept? Or is that strictly for wolves?

The concept of alpha, beta, etc in wolves was observed in captivity, and then incorrectly extrapolated to describe wild populations. Now science is finding that if you put a social species in a captive environment with unfamiliar stressors and dissolve the existing natural social groups that would have existed freely, unnatural social hierarchies develop to fill the gap.

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#72
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's also 22 years younger than him.

You inspired me to the lifespan of Japanese macaques, and it is 27 years; the previous alpha male was 31 years old, which suggests to me that he must have been pretty over the hill. Given that she is smaller than the average male macaque, I imagine that this is not a terribly stable situation.

There should be an anime adaptation of this story: Sukeban Saru

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense to me because for every child a daughter has, someone's son had a child. It has to balance out unless someone invents monkey mitosis.

>> It has to balance out It doesn't. In a species with 50/50 split between male and female, the number of males is almost irrelevant to population growth. Take rabbits. If you kill at birth 90% of the males, the population growth won't slow as the limit is the number of babies per-female. The 10% of males that survive simply father more kids via more females. Males can do that. Females cannot. Going one step further,…

> In a species with 50/50 split between male and female, the number of males is almost irrelevant to population growth.

The split between male and female isn't relevant to this. Unless the males are needed to raise the children, the number of males is irrelevant to population growth.

But the average benefit of having a son remains equal to the average benefit of having a daughter; that's why the ratio stays at 50/50.

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#75

We should expect to see this throughout the world, as the climate crisis intensifies. We should expect to see this especially in intelligent or social species. Game theory predicts that, from the point of view of parents, when the population is expanding it is better to have sons and when the population is shrinking it is better to have daughters. A son might have a lot of children when times are good and zero childr…

That makes no sense to me because for every child a daughter has, someone's son had a child. It has to balance out unless someone invents monkey mitosis.

Indications from genetic research are that humans may have about twice as many female ancestors as male according to some theory about discrepancy in the "time to most recent common ancestor" for mitochondrial DNA (extrapolating for female ancestors) and the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome (extrapolating for male ancestors).

I think the presence discrepancy is reasonably well accepted.

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/21/11/2047/1147770

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#76
post #22

I've been there a few times but always referred to it as "Monkey Mountain", never knew it was called Takasakiyama. If you're in Beppu it's well worth a visit. https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4703.html Bear in mind that these are wild animals and that there are days where the park's closed due to no monkeys.

Well, you had to figure it was named something in Japanese, right?

高崎山 appears to mean "tall, mountainous mountain". Monkeys aren't mentioned, though the name of the monkey preserve, 高崎山自然動物園 "Mount Takasaki Nature Zoo", does mention animals.

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#77
post #9

This is awesome. To get the top job, she: beat up her own mother; then took on the existing alpha 4x her age, and probably larger; then in the next 'peanut session' he had to backdown and let her eat first; and now she walks with an erect tail and goes and shakes trees for fun--It expresses her power. How cool is that! It just goes to show, it's never about gender, just about choices, ambition and how brave you choos…

> then took on the existing alpha 4x her age, and probably larger;

Beating up someone four times your own age is only challenging if you're a child.

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#78

Hasn’t the concept of alphas been discredited/debunked by the originator of the concept? Or is that strictly for wolves?

The originator of the (generic) concept "alpha" (please let us know who this is / who you think this is) has discontinued the term "alpha" (quite an alpha-decision from him, I would say) due to new insights discovered when observing wolves. Alpha does not exist for wolves (presumably)... and in general. To extend just further (why not) the concept gets fully discontinued, due to public pressure, because everything is…

You had me until your last sentence. What do you mean that the term is being discontinued due to public pressure? Isn't it natural for concepts to go away if they're found to be inaccurate (ex: phlogiston)? I also don't understand "everything is equal anyway". Could you elaborate?

Since you mention the term in relationship to the public, I actually think that "alpha" as a term to describe someone who is dominant has been doing just fine as a societal meme, despite it being used less among biologists/whomever. In this sense it doesn't seem to be going away at all.

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#79

We should expect to see this throughout the world, as the climate crisis intensifies. We should expect to see this especially in intelligent or social species. Game theory predicts that, from the point of view of parents, when the population is expanding it is better to have sons and when the population is shrinking it is better to have daughters. A son might have a lot of children when times are good and zero childr…

do you have sources for this, it's really not obvious for me, sounds a bit like a very confidently said hot take a little bit (without a source)

Re: Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history

#80
post #79

We should expect to see this throughout the world, as the climate crisis intensifies. We should expect to see this especially in intelligent or social species. Game theory predicts that, from the point of view of parents, when the population is expanding it is better to have sons and when the population is shrinking it is better to have daughters. A son might have a lot of children when times are good and zero childr…

do you have sources for this, it's really not obvious for me, sounds a bit like a very confidently said hot take a little bit (without a source)

Here is a start, follow the sources from here:

https://www.livescience.com/19311-famine-male-births-sex-rat...

Post reply on HN