• elephants ecology social behaviour

Socioecological theory attempts to explain the diversity of animal societies by relating ecological circumstances (such as resource and risk distributions) to relationships within and between social groups. Long-term monitoring of individually-identified animals is essential for understanding the behaviour and social lives of animals and testing predictions from socioecological theory. We describe work from the Kabini Elephant Project, which has been monitoring hundreds of Asian elephants in southern India. We describe our findings on female and male associations and agonism, and tests of socioecological theory.