Importance Of Meerarchical Arrangement In Vertebrate

The way which vertebrate groups organize themselves is highly dependent on hierarchy. Hierarchy can look quite different between groups of vertebrates. The vertebrates which are being studied are humans, meerkats and gorillas. The question is, how does hierarchical arrangement in vertebrates affect their lifestyle and survivability?” Humans, meerkats and gorillas form social groups with distinct hierarchical arrangements, these arrangements modify both the lifestyle and longevity of these vertebrate groups.

Humans are found to have a hierarchical arrangement throughout all societies. Ancient Egypt will be the society of particular interest for this study, due to the fact that it can be considered one of the earliest human civilizations (TimeMaps).

However this arrangement does express itself in a varied manner (figure 2), the gangs of meerkats are run by an alpha female and male, the female having a large degree of the power, due to the fact that she is the only meerkat which is technically allowed to give birth. Alpha meerkats, like a pharaoh, take on the responsibility of maintaining their gangs, ensuring that they exist according to their desires and providing a more comfortable lifestyle. Through formation of groups, meerkats are able to delegate their tasks, simplifying their everyday life and additionally increase chances of survival in their gang. The sharing of tasks is a theme also seen in Ancient Egyptian society and is key to the strength and power of these social groups. Female alpha meerkats, in contrast to pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, will actually go so far as to kill offspring of other female meerkats in their gang. This is to ensure that all resources provided by the family go to the alpha female's offspring, thus enhancing their survival rates. During research on pup mortality in meerkat gangs, it was stated that, “in meerkats, social factors largely, but not wholly, replace the importance of maternal factors that are commonly found to govern reproductive success in non-co-operatively breeding social vertebrates.”(Russell, 1) An example of competition and infanticide related to dominance can