Monogamy and family life in callitrichid monkeys: deviations, social dynamics and captive management

Abstract

Marmosets, tamarins and Goeldi's monkeys Callimico goeldii (Callitrichidae) are well represented in zoos. Owing to their small size, their attractive appearance and their social organization in family groups along with extensive alloparental care, these clawed New World monkeys make fine contributions to any primate collection. In the wild, callitrichids became famous for their so‐called ‘social flexibility’, whereas in captivity they can only be kept in heterosexual pairs or grown family groups. This contradiction is addressed in this article. Based on proximate aspects of behaviour, it is concluded that monogamy is the modal social grouping of any callitrichid taxon. In captive family groups of callitrichids, the underlying behavioural mechanisms that ensure the social and sexual integrity of that taxon‐specific pattern give rise to the kind of social dynamics that zoo personnel have to cope with at regular intervals; that is, marked intra‐group aggression and expulsion of group members. In summary, the overall behavioural theme of naturally grown groups of marmosets, tamarins and Goeldi's monkeys seems to be that their members are torn between cooperation and competition, resulting in occasional periods of social instability.

Long-term-stability of relationship structure in family groups of common marmosets, and its link to proactive prosociality

“…Our present results show that marmoset groups become more cohesive when infants are born, perhaps due to the necessity to jointly care for the infants. However, in callitrichids, reproductive competition among females may also lead to increased aggression and infanticide, and may thus be the cause of group separations or expulsions of single group members [49,50]. In other non-human primates, mothers are usually the sole care-takers and may therefore be cautious to shield their babies from attacks or intense contacts with the group.…”

Intraspecific variation in social organization by genetic variation, developmental plasticity, social flexibility or entirely extrinsic factors

“…For example, Callitrichids, small New World monkeys, have been reported to show the highest degree of social flexibility in primates [44,64], but in several species this might be due to social rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans R Soc B 368: 20120346 [45,46,48,61] rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans R Soc B 368: 20120346 disruption (mortality of breeder) of the default social organization of pair-living [12]. Nevertheless, if such disruption occurs regularly and has significant fitness effects [65][66][67], it could function as an important selection pressure for social flexibility.…”

“…solitary, pair-living, multi-malemulti-female species), there is no category for socially variable species. But to understand variation in social systems between species, it is important to understand the variation within species [7,12]. Here, I focus on the social organization, i.e.…”

Artificial insemination in common marmosets using sperm collected by penile vibratory stimulation

“…Chimpanzee and macaque monkeys, characterized by multimale-multifemale social system, show high coagulation ratings. Meanwhile, monogamy is the modal social grouping of any callitrichid taxon (Anzenberger and Falk, 2012). Thus, although the physical characteristics of the other members of the family Callitrichidae are not well-known, it is expected to be rather common among family members.…”