ownership

[boricua]

not sure if i misunderstood the documentation but my understanding is 
the -a option preserves ownership and permissions on transfer.

i did a remote test and i see ownership changed
is that becuase user does not exist in the remote box

4.0K drwxr-xr-x  14 zoe         zoe   4.0K 2007-07-15 08:08 zoe

but in the remote system they changed to 

4.0K drwxr-x---  8 boricua users 4.0K 2007-05-02 11:07 zoe/

in source box i was root and loged in as boricua to remote box.

please shed some light