Table 3.
Effect of dominant female treatments on offspring growth from emergence to nutritional independence (one to three months of age). Data are from a LMM where the response variable was morning body mass that contained random intercept terms for individual identity nested in birth litter nested in mother nested in the natal group (σ2 = 116.7) and year (σ2 = 0). If fixed effects by themselves were involved in significant higher-order interactions with other variables, only parameter estimates are shown. Data used in these analyses were 4676 measures of body mass from 195 meerkats produced by 21 dominant females across 53 different litters in 16 different social groups in three different years. Only offspring that survived to 90 days of age were included in these analyses.
| fixed effect | b | s.e. | t | d.f. | p-value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| intercept | |||||
| females | 184.6 | 9.75 | 18.93 | 53 | <0.0001 |
| males | 189.1 | 9.5 | 19.8 | 49 | <0.0001 |
| litter size | −5.31 | 3.9 | −1.37 | 48 | 0.18 |
| first weight | 15.96 | 2.52 | 6.344 | 166 | <0.0001 |
| sex (M) | 4.54 | 4.32 | |||
| age | 53.3 | 1.06 | |||
| age2 | −4.76 | 1.15 | |||
| rainfall | 2.81 | 0.61 | 4.57 | 4550 | <0.0001 |
| season (sine) | −67.6 | 3.3 | −20.6 | 4238 | <0.0001 |
| season (co-sine) | 66.22 | 3.4 | 19.2 | 4191 | <0.0001 |
| group size | 2.3 | 2.66 | 0.86 | 109 | 0.39 |
| group size2 | 0.09 | 2.21 | 0.04 | 178 | 0.97 |
| treatment (control) | |||||
| females | 22.6 | 15.6 | |||
| males | 12.9 | 15.5 | |||
| treatment (none) | |||||
| females | 23.6 | 10.6 | |||
| males | 22.9 | 10.4 | |||
| age × sex (M) | 1.64 | 1.37 | 1.19 | 4567 | 0.23 |
| age2 × sex (M) | 1.02 | 1.53 | 0.67 | 4543 | 0.5 |
| sex (M) × treatment (control) | −9.73 | 7.7 | −1.27 | 164 | 0.21 |
| sex (M) × treatment (none) | −0.63 | 5.1 | −0.12 | 172 | 0.9 |
| age × treatment (control) | |||||
| females | 7.6 | 1.8 | 4.17 | 4595 | <0.0001 |
| males | −2.3 | 1.5 | −1.48 | 4548 | 0.14 |
| age × treatment (none) | |||||
| females | 0.79 | 1.2 | 0.65 | 4574 | 0.51 |
| males | −0.53 | 1.01 | −0.52 | 4580 | 0.60 |
| age2 × treatment (control) | |||||
| females | −0.13 | 1.93 | −0.07 | 4521 | 0.94 |
| males | −1.05 | 1.6 | −0.65 | 4547 | 0.52 |
| age2 × treatment (none) | |||||
| females | −2.6 | 1.3 | −1.96 | 4534 | 0.051 |
| males | −6.9 | 1.1 | −6.23 | 4556 | <0.0001 |
| age × treatment (control) × sex (M) | −9.9 | 2.3 | −4.23 | 4574 | <0.0001 |
| age × treatment (none) × sex (M) | −1.3 | 1.6 | −0.84 | 4581 | 0.4 |
| age2 × treatment (control) × sex (M) | −0.93 | 2.5 | −0.37 | 4552 | 0.71 |
| age2 × treatment (none) × sex (M) | −4.3 | 1.7 | −2.5 | 4552 | 0.01 |