Social Structure
African elephant herds, like other fission-fusion societies are flexible in terms of spatial relationships. Although, African elephants are organized in a complex multilevel, hierarchical society, the elephants live in a very fluid social group. Adult females usually live in a family of 2-10 other adult females and their offspring. As those offspring mature, families divide into sub-units. These sub-unit families can fuse with larger families to form an even larger social group. However, the central core social group is composed of related females and their offspring, and this core group or family unit is associated with other core groups to form kin-based social groups (Vance, Archie & Moss 2009).
Specifically, African elephant’s social structure can be separated into 4 social tiers. Tier 1 groups are mother-calf units; tiers 2 groups are associated with tier 1, and are known as the “core group”; tier 3 units are composed of multiple tier 2 groups that correspond to kinship, and all of these units fall under tier 4 (de Silva & Wittemyer 2012).
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Visual Representation of Social Tiers