Determining Dominance: The correlation between access to food and group defense in African buffalo

Both "Access to food"; and ";group defense"; were selected as behaviours indicative of dominance for a subgroup of African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) females. Observations were recorded regarding these two behaviours, and a hierarchy was constructed for the eight-cow clan. Results suggest that both charging and access to the feeding trough were not randomized behaviours. In fact, results showed that the two behaviours are inversely related to dominance, allowing an accurate hierarchy for the subgroup to be constructed based on observations.