The implications of social structure for dominance hierarchies in red deer, Cervus elaphus L

Abstract A recent paper by Iverson & Sade (J. quant. Anthropol., 1990, 2, 61–83) suggests that red deer stags that are high in a dominance ranking are equally likely to defeat those lower in the ranking, regardless of how different they are in their relative positions. Their result contradicts the common observation that stags find it easier to defeat those far below them in the hierarchy than those close to them in the hierarchy. This paper demonstrates that the apparent contradiction can be eliminated by considering two questions about the structure of agonistic encounters: ‘Who fights with whom?’ and ‘Who fights at all?’.