| Abstract |
Cattle are social creatures that naturally form dominant-subordinate relationships where groups of individuals define their position within the group’s social dominance hierarchy. Dominance hierarchies exist to maintain a stable social order and reduce aggression. However, social dominance rank may dictate access to resources which could deleteriously affect an individual’s welfare. The purpose of this scoping review was to evaluate the extent, range, and nature of research that has been conducted to assess social dominance (SD) in beef cattle. This scoping review focused on two objectives: 1) assemble SD indexes used to assess beef cattle SD and highlight how they differ and, 2) examine the relationships between SD and measures of cattle behavior, productivity, physiology, reproduction, and cattle attributes. The final search of CAB Abstracts, AGRIS, Scopus, and SPAC was performed on September 22, 2019 and resulted in 24 articles (27 studies) that evaluated social dominance in beef cattle. Social groups made up of cattle of mixed ages, regardless of sex, will have a social dominance structure that closely resembles that which occurs in free-ranging herds. Cattle social group breed and age composition were found to alter social dominance rank relationships to cattle attributes. Within multi-breed groups, breed had the most prominent relationship to social dominance rank. In single breed groups, age had the largest influence on social dominance rank. The longer cattle had been in a group (i.e., longevity) may impact social dominance rank more than age or breed following changes in group composition. Male reproductive behavior and success increased with social dominance rank in groups of cattle that were of various ages but decreased with or was not related to social dominance rank in groups of males that were similar in age. Agonistic interactions were found to be directed to individuals within other social dominance rank categories than those within the same social dominance rank category. Yet, the relationship between social dominance rank and several measures (i.e., feed intake and cortisol concentrations) may be dependent on the context in which the relationship is evaluated. However, there was little conclusive evidence to suggest that social dominance rank was related to productivity, feeding behaviors, blood metabolites and cell counts, physiological measures, and other behavior measures (i.e., allogrooming, herd movement, foraging, resting). This scoping review examined studies of varied sample size, cattle attributes, methodological approaches, and experimental design showcasing areas with solid evidence and main research gaps regarding beef cattle social dominance.
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