The fitness of dispersing spotted hyaena sons is influenced by maternal social status

Life history theory predicts that mothers should provide their offspring with a privileged upbringing if this enhances their offspring's and their own fitness. In many mammals, high-ranking mothers provide their offspring with a privileged upbringing. Whether dispersing sons gain fitness benefits during adulthood from such privileges (a 'silver spoon' effect) has rarely been examined. In this paper, we show that in the complex, female-dominated society of spotted hyaenas, high-born sons grew at higher rates, were more likely to disperse to clans offering the best fitness prospects, started reproducing earlier and had a higher reproductive value than did lower-born sons. This illustrates the evolutionary importance of maternal effects even in societies in which male size or fighting ability does not influence fitness. By demonstrating for the first time in a non-human mammal that maternal status influences immigration patterns, the study also advances our understanding of two key ecological and evolutionary processes, dispersal and habitat selection

The Future of IT in Peace and Security

Not only today, but also in the future information technology and the advances in the field of computer science will have a high relevance for peace and security. Naturally, a textbook like this can only cover a selective part of research and a certain point in time. Nonetheless, it can be attempted to identify trends, challenges and venture an outlook into the future. That is exactly what we want to achieve in this chapter: To predict fu-ture developments and try to classify them correctly. These considerations were made both by the editor and the authors involved alike. Therefore, an outlook based on fun-damentals, cyber conflicts and war, cyber peace, cyber arms control, infrastructures as well as social interaction is given