“Dominant individuals (defined as reproducing males and females)
occupy the centre of roosts and subdominant individuals (defined as
non-reproducing males and females) the outer area”
Prior studies reported inconsistent spatial patterns in flying-fox
occupation (Table 2). From our new dataset, we observed that the
proportion of males per tree increased with distance from the roost
centre (0.15 ± 0.039, p<0.001), though this effect was
relatively small and variable across roosts and species (Figure 8). If
we assume that only dominant males share their territory with females
and their young (Markus 2002; Welbergen 2005), a lower proportion of
males in trees closer to the centre of roosts may indicate that dominant
individuals occupy the centre of some roosts and subdominant individuals
the outer area. The small effect sizes observed would suggest that there
is no clear spatial structure to reproductive groupings or dominance
groupings. This can be seen also in maps showing male composition by
tree relative to the roost perimeter, given in Appendix S4 in the
Supporting Information.