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Cited by 435

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 7 of the 7 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Selfish Sentinels in Cooperative Mammals

Clutton-Brock, T. H., O'Riain, M. J., Brotherton, P. N. M., Gaynor, D., Kansky, R., Griffin, A. S., Manser, M.·1999·Science

Abstract

Like humans engaged in risky activities, group members of some animal societies take turns acting as sentinels. Explanations of the evolution of sentinel behavior have frequently relied on kin selection or reciprocal altruism, but recent models suggest that guarding may be an individual's optimal activity once its stomach is full if no other animal is on guard. This paper provides support for this last explanation by showing that, in groups of meerkats ( Suricata suricatta ), animals guard from safe sites, and solitary individuals as well as group members spend part of their time on guard. Though individuals seldom take successive guarding bouts, there is no regular rota, and the provision of food increases contributions to guarding and reduces the latency between bouts by the same individual.

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Crossref · 10.1126/science.284.5420.1640

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Metadata

Authors
Clutton-Brock, T. H., O'Riain, M. J., Brotherton, P. N. M., Gaynor, D., Kansky, R., Griffin, A. S., & Manser, M.
Venue
Science
Published
1999-06-04
Volume
284
Issue
5420
Pages
1640-1644
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
OpenAlex
W2148439661
Cited by
435
References
7
FWCI
22.75
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Selfish Sentinels in Cooperative Mammals. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1126/science.284.5420.1640
The paper
Clutton-Brock, T. H., O'Riain, M. J., Brotherton, P. N. M., Gaynor, D., Kansky, R., Griffin, A. S., & Manser, M. (1999). Selfish Sentinels in Cooperative Mammals. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.284.5420.1640

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.