Page "Common chimpanzee" Paragraph 26

At the core of social structures are males, which roam around, protect group members, and search for food.

Males remain in their natal communities, while females generally emigrate at adolescence.

As such, males in a community are more likely to be related to one another than females are to each other.

Among males, there is generally a dominance hierarchy and males are dominant over females.

However, this unusual fission-fusion social structure, " in which portions of the parent group may on a regular basis separate from and then rejoin the rest ," is highly variable in terms of which particular individual chimpanzees congregate at a given time.

This is mainly due to chimpanzees having a high level of individual autonomy within their fission-fusion social groups.

Also, communities have large ranges that overlap with those of other groups.