Male Dominance Rank, Mating and Reproductive Success in Captive Bonobos (Pan paniscus)

Marvan, Richard; Stevens, Jeroen M. G.; Roeder, Amy D.; Mazura, Ivan; Bruford, Michael William; Ruiter, Jan R. de

doi:10.1159/000093702

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Regarding Vehrencamp's (1983) criterion of resource allocation, Vervaecke et al (1999) showed that highranking bonobos in Planckendael had easier access to food. We also found that copulations among male bonobos are not distributed equally (Stevens, unpublished results), which corresponds with findings from wild studies that dominant males obtain more copulations (Kano 1996;Takahata et al 1996), though there is not always a relationship between dominance and mating success (; Furuichi and Hashimoto 2004;Marvan et al 2006).…”

Section: Dominance Hierarchiessupporting

confidence: 88%

Sex Differences in the Steepness of Dominance Hierarchies in Captive Bonobo Groups

et al. 2007

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Bonobos have a reputation as a female-dominated and egalitarian species. We examined the 2 aspects of dominance in 6 captive bonobo groups. Females do not consistently evoke submission from all males in all contexts. Though females occupy the highest-ranking positions in the dominance hierarchy, there are in each group males that obtain rather high ranks and are able to dominate ≥1 female. Thus female dominance is not complete and hierarchies can be better described as nonexclusive female dominance. We studied egalitarianism by measuring linearity and steepness of dominance hierarchies. The hierarchies of all groups are highly linear. Hierarchies among males are steeper than among females. On average, male bonobos are more despotic than females, but females too can have despotic relations, both with other females and with males. Hence one can call bonobos in captivity semidespotic rather than egalitarian.

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Section: Dominance Hierarchiessupporting

confidence: 88%

Sex Differences in the Steepness of Dominance Hierarchies in Captive Bonobo Groups

et al. 2007

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“…Under such conditions the opportunistic mating strategy in chimpanzee communities offers an opportunity for sperm competition in this species [32] – [34] . In contrast, the high social status of females in bonobo communities is unique to this species of Pan [35] , [36] which, coupled to concealed ovulation, could allow greater female choice [37] , and this may act as an evolutionary counterstrategy that diminishes sexual selection via sperm competition. This view is further supported by the observation that relative to chimpanzees, adult bonobos show reduced sex dimorphism in both body size [38] and the canine teeth [39] , [40] .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Y Chromosomal Variation Tracks the Evolution of Mating Systems in Chimpanzee and Bonobo

et al. 2010

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The male-specific regions of the Y chromosome (MSY) of the human and the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) are fully sequenced. The most striking difference is the dramatic rearrangement of large parts of their respective MSYs. These non-recombining regions include ampliconic gene families that are known to be important for male reproduction,and are consequently under significant selective pressure. However, whether the published Y-chromosomal pattern of ampliconic fertility genes is invariable within P. troglodytes is an open but fundamental question pertinent to discussions of the evolutionary fate of the Y chromosome in different primate mating systems. To solve this question we applied fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) of testis-specific expressed ampliconic fertility genes to metaphase Y chromosomes of 17 chimpanzees derived from 11 wild-born males and 16 bonobos representing seven wild-born males. We show that of eleven P. troglodytes Y-chromosomal lines, ten Y-chromosomal variants were detected based on the number and arrangement of the ampliconic fertility genes DAZ (deleted in azoospermia) and CDY (chromodomain protein Y)—a so-far never-described variation of a species' Y chromosome. In marked contrast, no variation was evident among seven Y-chromosomal lines of the bonobo, P. paniscus, the chimpanzee's closest living relative. Although, loss of variation of the Y chromosome in the bonobo by a founder effect or genetic drift cannot be excluded, these contrasting patterns might be explained in the context of the species' markedly different social and mating behaviour. In chimpanzees, multiple males copulate with a receptive female during a short period of visible anogenital swelling, and this may place significant selection on fertility genes. In bonobos, however, female mate choice may make sperm competition redundant (leading to monomorphism of fertility genes), since ovulation in this species is concealed by the prolonged anogenital swelling, and because female bonobos can occupy high-ranking positions in the group and are thus able to determine mate choice more freely.

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“…Low rank of males prohibits them to drive away other males and to force females to mate against their will [53] , [60] . From an evolutionary perspective, competition among males for females may lead to fewer males in the group [64] , [65] , and bigger males, thus to increased sexual dimorphism [66] , and therefore, in extreme cases to stronger male dominance. However, the present study addresses only immediate effects, in which, in contrast, increased aggression with males augments female dominance over males via the winner-loser effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female Dominance over Males in Primates: Self-Organisation and Sexual Dimorphism

2008

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The processes that underlie the formation of the dominance hierarchy in a group are since long under debate. Models of self-organisation suggest that dominance hierarchies develop by the self-reinforcing effects of winning and losing fights (the so-called winner-loser effect), but according to ‘the prior attribute hypothesis’, dominance hierarchies develop from pre-existing individual differences, such as in body mass. In the present paper, we investigate the relevance of each of these two theories for the degree of female dominance over males. We investigate this in a correlative study in which we compare female dominance between groups of 22 species throughout the primate order. In our study female dominance may range from 0 (no female dominance) to 1 (complete female dominance). As regards ‘the prior attribute hypothesis’, we expected a negative correlation between female dominance over males and species-specific sexual dimorphism in body mass. However, to our surprise we found none (we use the method of independent contrasts). Instead, we confirm the self-organisation hypothesis: our model based on the winner-loser effect predicts that female dominance over males increases with the percentage of males in the group. We confirm this pattern at several levels in empirical data (among groups of a single species and between species of the same genus and of different ones). Since the winner-loser effect has been shown to work in many taxa including humans, these results may have broad implications.

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Male Dominance Rank, Mating and Reproductive Success in Captive Bonobos (Pan paniscus)

Cited by 16 publications

References 45 publications

Sex Differences in the Steepness of Dominance Hierarchies in Captive Bonobo Groups

Sex Differences in the Steepness of Dominance Hierarchies in Captive Bonobo Groups

Y Chromosomal Variation Tracks the Evolution of Mating Systems in Chimpanzee and Bonobo

Female Dominance over Males in Primates: Self-Organisation and Sexual Dimorphism

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