Researchers at Colorado State University who have been conducting a 16-year-old study on the social dynamics of elephants in Samburu National Reserve in Kenya were able to observe and conclude that elephant herds are able to adapt to the loss of a matriarch because elephant daughters step up to fill the role, thus securing the bond among the remaining members and continuing the social structure that helps them survive.
The population of elephants is highly threatened by the increasing incidents of illegal poaching of ivory, which can be found in an elephant's tusk. The bigger the tusk, the greater the amount if ivory that can be taken, thus, the matriarchs, which are often the oldest and the biggest female elephants in the herd, are always the ones targeted by poachers.
Poaching not only decreases the population of the elephants, but it also weakens the structure and bond of an elephant community. However, because of how tight the elephant matriarchal social structure is, those that remain alive are able to cope up with the loss as soon as a daughter of the matriarch takes over its role.
"The survivors maintained strong bonds through all of this, at times staying together closely for months, as if they were one single large family," said George Wittemyer, who has been studying the altered social structure of the elephants since 1997, according to Tech Times.
What the daughter basically does is restructure the relationships with other elephants using the relationships established by their dead mothers.
This incredible social flexibility exhibited by the elephants is one great reason why its population is able to sustain the growing poaching activities.
"The fact that elephants are socially resilient is an important and exciting finding, showing their innate resilience to this unfortunate human pressure," said Shifra Goldenberg, first author of the study, according to Live Science.
Researchers continue to follow the elephants in Kenya to further document their social dynamics as the poaching tragedies also continue.
The study was published on the Dec. 17, 2015 issue of the journal Current Biology.
