Do meerkats engage in conflict management following aggression? Reconciliation, submission and avoidance

Group-living primates and other animals use postaggression (PA) behavioural strategies to reduce the social costs of aggression. However, the relative frequency with which individuals use these conflict management strategies is unclear in many species, and functional analyses of these behaviours are rare. We observed aggression by dominant individuals against group members in cooperatively breeding meerkats, Suricata suricatta, and examined the incidents and effects of PA affiliation between the opponents (reconciliation), avoidance and submission. Aggression had a negative effect on the social relationship between opponents because of an elevated probability of aggression occurrence and an increased time interval until the first nonagonistic PA encounter compared to nonagonistic (control) encounters. The probability of aggression reoccurrence did not decrease with increasing time interval until the first PA encounter, indicating that aggression had long-lasting negative effects on social relationships. Evidence of reconciliation following aggression was not confirmed in this species. Avoidance and submission by the victim characterized the social behaviour following aggression. Although avoidance by victims in the first PA encounter reduced the probability of aggression reoccurrence, submission during aggression neither reduced the probability of aggression reoccurrence nor shortened the time interval until the first PA encounter. These results suggest that avoidance is the only behavioural option for victims of aggression to deal with PA hostility. Reconciliation and other forms of conflict management may be more important in species with low reproductive skew and with opportunities for negotiating relationships between group members than in despotic singular cooperative breeders.