Data from: Cooperative personalities and social niche specialisation in female meerkats

The social niche specialisation hypothesis predicts that group-living animals should specialise in particular social roles to avoid social conflict, resulting in alternative life history strategies for different roles. Social niche specialisation, coupled with role-specific life history trade-offs, should thus generate between-individual differences in behaviour that persist through time, or distinct personalities, as individuals specialise in particular non-overlapping social roles. We tested for support for the social niche specialisation hypothesis in cooperative personality traits in wild female meerkats (Suricata suricatta) that compete for access to dominant social roles. As cooperation is costly and dominance is acquired by heavier females, we predicted that females that ultimately acquired dominant roles would show non-cooperative personality types early in life, and before and after role acquisition. Although we found large individual differences in repeatable cooperative behaviours, there was no indication that individuals that ultimately acquired dominance differed from unsuccessful individuals in their cooperative behaviour. Early-life behaviour did not predict social role acquisition later in life, nor was cooperative behaviour before and after role acquisition correlated in the same individuals. We suggest female meerkats do not show social niche specialisation resulting in cooperative personalities, but that they exhibit an adaptive response in personality at role acquisition.