Power in the Wild

"Power in the Wild

By Lee Alan Dugatkin

(Chicago, 187 pages, $25)

Mark Twain, that great observer, is said to have observed that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. Lots of us talk about power, and consciously or not, we're always deeply aware of it. Moreover, we do try to do something about it, either to obtain it for ourselves or in response to its exercise by others. In "Power in the Wild," Lee Alan Dugatkin, professor of biology at the University of Louisville and an observant sort himself, powerfully explores the complex ways nonhuman animals do the same.

"Power" derives from the Latin word potere, "to be able": able to exert force physically, economically, socially, pretty much any way that presents itself. As Mr. Dugatkin demonstrates, power -- the quest to attain and maintain it -- lies at the heart of almost all animal societies. "Power pervades every aspect of the social lives of animals," he writes. "What they eat, where they eat, where they live, whom they mate with, how many offspring they produce, whom they join forces with, whom they work to depose, and more. Sometimes power struggles are between males, sometimes between females, and sometimes across sexes. At times, power pits young against old; at other times, the struggle is mostly with peers. Sometimes kin are pitted against one another, and other times they join forces to usurp the power of others." It's the ocean in which all social animals swim.

"Power in the Wild" gives a scrupulously scientific but highly accessible tour of power's manifestations among caribou, bonobos, deer, dolphins, hyenas, meerkats, mice, mongooses (mongeese?) -- and those are just some of the mammals. We also witness the machinations of cockroaches, copperhead snakes, loons, ravens, skylarks, wasps and the gorgeous white-fronted bee-eater. Mr. Dugatkin says his book is a "tribute to the complexity, the depth, and . . . the beauty of power in animal societies." The lovely full-color photos admirably bear this out.

During the first half of the 20th century, "classical" behavioral biologists -- ethologists like Nobelists Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen -- described and categorized animal behavior in great, even excruciating, detail, with the sort of taxonomic scrupulosity some latter-day biologists disdain as "stamp-collecting." No longer. Today's researchers add a key evolutionary twist: assessing the reproductive consequences of dominance hierarchies brings new vibrancy to the field. "Power in the Wild" is a readable and intellectually satisfying melding of the two: meticulous accounts of how status is achieved and maintained, and how the need to reproduce induces individuals to strive for power in the first place.

Fish do it; birds do it; even spotted hyenas do it. In hyena society, females outrank males, resembling them so closely that their genital anatomy confuses the human observer. Female hyenas have massive jaws to crack open bones for their offspring, and the more powerful their jaws the higher their social power. High-ranking females begin to reproduce when younger than their lower-ranking counterparts, breeding for more years all told. In addition, they give birth more frequently, with shorter "interbirth intervals," and produce offspring that are "more likely to survive to the age of reproduction themselves, creating dynasties of a sort." As Mr. Dugatkin writes, "the path to hyena power, . . . successfully navigated, pays" -- certainly in terms of passing the family genes along, which is what evolution is all about.

Paths to power differ with each species, although the evolutionary payoff -- reproductive success -- remains the ultimate prize. The gigantic northern elephant seals of the California coast participate in titanic, "full-fledged knock-down, drag-out fights between males, and with females pitting male against male." Cuttlefish are more subtle, "using color, pattern, and deception, though they are not at all averse to turning to aggression when necessary."

This compact but very gratifying book delves into the physiology whereby dominant females can suppress the estrus cycles of subordinates, and how coalitions can overpower otherwise dominant individuals, rendering the notion of "alpha male" less relevant. Any individual, it turns out, is less powerful than previously thought.

Among the make-love-not-war bonobos, for example, males are about 25% larger than females and sometimes bully them. But females are on balance more powerful, because of their girlfriend coalitions. Once, reports Mr. Dugatkin, "four females attack[ed] an alpha male. That male was part of a group of four males who were harassing an estrous female, when out of nowhere, her three coalition partners came swooping in to her aid. The coalition attacked the alpha mercilessly, and he barely escaped with his life."

Mr. Dugatkin provides thought-provoking, as well as thought-revealing, examples of cognition. In some fish species, for example, observer males spy on gladiatorial contests, remember who won, and avoid the successful fish, restricting their challenges to previous losers.

Or hermit crabs, among whom empty mollusk shells are prime real estate, and who regularly engage in home invasions. The invader climbs on an already-occupied shell, rocks it side to side and pounds on it. But even if the original occupant signals defeat, the invader remains skeptical, holding on to its own previously occupied house till it decides whether to move. If it's lucky, the newly evicted (deservedly crabby) defeatee has to occupy the invader's previous residence.

True to its title, "Power in the Wild" doesn't address Homo sapiens. But the anthropocentrically inclined will find that the power dynamics of nonhuman animals offer plenty of insight into our own, distorted a bit as in a funhouse mirror. For the open-minded, Mr. Dugatkin's depiction of power in the wild yields a stunningly provocative reflection.

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Mr. Barash is emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Washington. His most recent book is "Threats: Intimidation and Its Discontents."" [1]

1. Forces Of Nature
Barash, David P. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 18 May 2022: A.19.