The effect of a mother’s rank on her offspring’s pre-weaning rank in farmed red deer Adam Dus ˇek a,b, * , Lude ˇk Bartos ˇ a , Ludmila S ˇ vecova ´ a a Ethology Group, Research Institute of Animal Production, P.O.B. 1, Praha-Uhr ˇı ´ne ˇves CZ-104 01, Czech Republic b Biodiversity Research Group, Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Vinic ˇna ´ 7, Praha CZ-128 44, Czech Republic Accepted 28 March 2006 Available online 2 May 2006 Abstract Maternal rank ‘‘inheritance’’ occurs in cercopithecine primates, spotted hyenas and several ungulates. A recently observed positive relationship between dominance rank of a mother and that of her sub-adult offspring in wild red deer (Cervus elaphus) suggests that maternal rank ‘‘inheritance’’ also occurs in this species. This may be caused by various factors. We have focused on one of them. Presuming that an offspring will ‘‘inherit’’ the dominance rank of its mother, we hypothesized that the mother will support her offspring by directing attacks towards the peers of her offspring. We observed three groups of hinds and calves (hinds/calves n = 18/7, 18/10 and 28/14, respectively). Observation took place since the 3rd month up to the 11th month of the calves’ age. We recorded 8339 agonistic encounters. The rank of an animal was assessed by its fighting success. The fighting success of the offspring increased with the fighting success of its mother (GLMM, F (1,31) = 29.88, P = 0.0001) and with the offspring’s birth body weight (GLMM, F (1,31) = 22.72, P = 0.0001). Milk hinds (females with a surviving calf) attacked other calves more often than the yeld hinds (females without a calf) did. The aggressiveness of the milk hinds increased with the aggressiveness of the attacked calves (GLMM, F (2,164) = 11.68, P = 0.0001). Although we observed several events when a mother intervened on behalf of her offspring, it seems that mothers affected the rank of their offspring rather indirectly by the offspring’s birth body weight, timing of delivery, etc. # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Maternal rank; Offspring rank; Rank inheritance; Aggressive behaviour; Red deer; Cervus elaphus www.elsevier.com/locate/applanim Applied Animal Behaviour Science 103 (2007) 146–155 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +420 267 009 765; fax: +420 267 710 779. E-mail address: adamdusek@yahoo.com (A. Dus ˇek). 0168-1591/$ – see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2006.03.020