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"Your mom always told you hanging out with the wrong kids would get you into trouble. Dolphin mothers should probably warn their daughters too." So begins an article about motherhood in dolphins. A recent 20 year study of wild Australian bottlenose dolphins showed that "social factors — whom a dolphin associates with, and how closely — appear to be more important than genes in determining a female's likelihood of raising a calf to 3 years, an age where it has a good chance of surviving on its own."
The results of this landmark study are extremely important to people interested in the effects of social factors and genes on the behavior of wild animals because researchers essentially showed that "good mothers tended to spend time with other good mothers. Less successful mothers were less discriminating about their companions." So, it's good to be choosy when it comes to deciding who's going to be a close friend. How these findings apply to other species remains an open question but they've opened the door for learning more about the factors that influence variations in female reproductive success.
