Social structures (inter-individual relationships) of primates are highly dependent on food type and distribution. As fruit is a clumped, high-quality, usurpable resource allowing specific individuals to monopolize it, it has the potential to evoke contest competition between group members. This may be especially true for western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), which have a higher degree of frugivory than any other gorilla subspecies, and whose social systems are poorly predicted/described by existing socioecological models. In this dissertation, I examine how a high-quality, patchy, food resource (in the form of an artificial “termite mound”) affects spatial proximity, relationships, and social behavior in a western lowland gorilla group housed at Zoo Atlanta. This “termite mound” was “baited” with applesauce and introduced under three foraging conditions: pre-installation (baseline), post-installation (baited), and post-installation (non-baited). In both post-installation periods, the majority of gorillas within the group increased their inter-individual distances significantly (0.8 m (6%)) compared to the pre-installation period. Construction of gorilla group social networks, cluster and centrality analyses for each condition revealed changes in group social structure as a result of the introduction and baiting of the termite mound. Clique membership was largely based on kin and average gorillas’ importance increased across conditions, peaking in the baited condition. Unexpectedly, the group’s silverback was neither central in the network nor present in any clique. Juvenile gorillas were highly attracted to the mound but did not use it significantly more than adults. Foraging “rules” of this gorillas group appear to prohibit some individuals from social foraging, though we observed more social foraging and tolerance than expected. Social behavior was agonistic, but rare and included displacements mostly performed by females. We interpret these results as indicating most gorillas perceived greater risk of contest competition with others in the presence of a localized, usurpable food source (or the physical marker of that resource). The findings highlight gorillas’ sensitivity to changes in the degree of direct competition they experience for food and indicate that kin relationship (along with perhaps dominance/personality) dictate social sub-groupings of gorillas, indicative of priority access to high quality resources.