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Male bottlenose dolphins have been found by an international team of researchers lead by scientists at the University of Bristol to create the largest known multi-level alliance network outside of humans. These cross-group alliances make it easier for men to get a scarce resource. In order to reconstruct the structure of alliances between 121 adult male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins at Shark Bay in Western Australia, the researchers, along with collaborators from the Universities of Zurich and Massachusetts, examined association and consortship data. Today, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published their findings (PNAS). In Shark Bay, male dolphins group together in first-order alliances of two to three males to cooperate pursue mating relationships with specific females. For access to female dolphins, second-order coalitions of four to fourteen unrelated males fight with one another, while third-order alliances form amongst collaborating second-order alliances. ...

Male bottlenose dolphins have been found by an international team of researchers lead by scientists at the University of Bristol to create the largest known multi-level alliance network outside of humans. These cross-group alliances make it easier for men to get a scarce resource. In order to reconstruct the structure of alliances between 121 adult male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins at Shark Bay in Western Australia, the researchers, along with collaborators from the Universities of Zurich and Massachusetts, examined association and consortship data. Today, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published their findings (PNAS). In Shark Bay, male dolphins group together in first-order alliances of two to three males to cooperate pursue mating relationships with specific females. For access to female dolphins, second-order coalitions of four to fourteen unrelated males fight with one another, while third-order alliances form amongst collaborating second-order alliances. ...