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Meerkats in zoos fight over food more aggressively, are pickier about which of their peers they groom and have less stable relationships than those living in the wild.

This may be due to living such a comfortable life, free of predators and with food and housing reliably available without having to work together for it, says at the Autonomous University of Mexico State. 鈥淚n a confined space, where conditions rarely change and are fairly predictable, individuals may freely聽adjust their social dynamics with the group members at any moment, without losing benefits like food, reproductive mates or predation protection,鈥� she says.

Pacheco built her study of meerkats on the decade-long work of her colleague Joah Madden at the University of Exeter, UK. Madden鈥檚 team observed the social interactions of more than 100聽living in eight groups in South Africa. It was a 鈥渦nique opportunity鈥� for studying non-primates in the wild, because the groups had become habituated to humans and let the researchers study them up-close and in detail, he says. He and his colleagues used this information to develop a behaviour checklist specifically for studying meerkat social networks.

Using Madden鈥檚 chart, Pacheco spent 300 hours observing 113 meerkats living in 15 groups across 13 zoos in the UK and Mexico, most of which had enclosures that closely resemble their native southern African habitats. She recorded 5689 social interactions.

Pacheco found that the meerkats in captivity were more selective when choosing which friends to groom, resulting in less popular meerkats rarely getting groomed. Dominant meerkats also fought with fewer individuals but more aggressively, growling at, 鈥渉ip-slamming鈥� and biting other individuals.

Previous studies have compared the behaviour of wild and captive primates, birds and fish, but this is the first one to directly compare specific interactions using animals in so many groups.

The findings provide a 鈥渞eally interesting comparison鈥� that highlights how the care provided in zoos might affect natural animal behaviour, says at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. 鈥淭his study shows that meerkats in captivity do not necessarily need to develop as advanced social networks as they would in the wild to survive.鈥�

More research is needed to determine the full well-being implications of social networks in managed zoo animals, she says.

Although 鈥渨e probably do not need any new zoos鈥�, the existing ones play an important role in benefiting wild animals in general, says Pacheco. 鈥淲e need to support and focus on those zoos that are prioritising animal welfare, research and conservation education efforts. And, most importantly, we need to simultaneously support more conservation in the wild.鈥�