Patterns of agonistic interaction and space utilization by agoutis (Dasyprocta punctata)

Field observation revealed that, in the months of food scarcity, normally solitary and minimally interactive agoutis (Dasyprocta punctata) aggregate at rich feeding sites and form dominance hierarchies. An individual agouti's position in such a hierarchy is uncorrelated with its previous frequency of utilization of the feeding site. The results are discussed as an example of plasticity in mammalian social organization in response to exogenous and endogenous variables.