Meeting Abstract

127.4  Tuesday, Jan. 7 14:15  Exploration of the Behaviors Defining Personality in African Elephants FELTON, S.K.*; MERTE, C.E.; SCHULTE, B.A.; Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green; Georgia Southern University, Statesboro; Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green shilo.felton749@topper.wku.edu

In sub-Saharan Africa, crop-raiding by African elephants is a major component of human-elephant conflict (HEC) which impedes conservation efforts. Understanding elephant behavioral patterns may provide insights for reducing HEC. Elephants have a capacity for learning; thus, they may alter their behavioral patterns over time. This behavioral plasticity in itself might be a way of measuring consistent behavioral differences among individuals. We approached elephant personality as a multivariate problem. We ran ordination methods on all behaviors gathered from 156 female African elephants to determine which behavior correlations were important in defining personality. Ordinations were performed on the data set and subsets for each age class (calf, juvenile, pubescent, adult). We calculated the angular differences among major axes of covariation from the subset ordinations to determine if the behaviors that defined personalities differed by age class. We compared measurements of dispersion (plasticity) among ordination scores for age classes and for individuals to assess if plasticity differed for age classes and individuals. Behavioral plasticity and the behaviors defining behavior remained consistent among age classes. Individuals varied in some measurements of dispersion, though dispersion was not a function of other factors measured (family group, age, etc.), indicating that it may be a valid measurement of personality. Our approach lends more flexibility in defining behavioral trends in individuals. Characterizing elephant behavior in this manner could allow predictability to which individual elephants create conflicts and under what conditions HEC might occur.