Same father, same face: Deep learning reveals selection for signaling kinship in a wild primate

Charpentier, Marie; Harté, Mélanie; Poirotte, Clémence; Bellefon, Jade Meric de; Laubi, Benjamin; Kappeler, Peter M.; Renoult, Julien P.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aba3274

Cited by 27 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, evidence is mounting that unfamiliar kin are capable of recognizing each other through phenotypic matching (Mateo, 2004; Widdig, 2007). Several studies have reported auditory, visual and olfactory cues that contain information about relatedness (Bower, Suomi, & Paukner, 2012; Charpentier, Boulet, & Drea, 2008; Charpentier et al., 2020; Deecke, Barrett‐Lennard, Spong, & Ford, 2010; Huchard et al., 2010; Kazem & Widdig, 2013; Levréro et al., 2015; Mateo, 2002, 2017; Setchell et al., 2011) and animals respond differently to such cues from related versus unrelated individuals (Charpentier, Crawford, Boulet, & Drea, 2010; Charpentier et al., 2017; Gilad, Swaisgood, Owen, & Zhou, 2016; Henkel & Setchell, 2018; Kessler, Scheumann, Nash, & Zimmermann, 2012; Leclaire, Nielsen, Thavarajah, Manser, & Clutton‐Brock, 2013; Levréro et al., 2015; Pfefferle, Kazem, Brockhausen, Ruiz‐Lambides, & Widdig, 2014; Pfefferle Ruiz‐Lambides, & Widdig, 2014, 2015). Many of these studies have focused on species closely related to Assamese macaques, so it is plausible that the males in our study are capable of recognizing unfamiliar kin through similar mechanisms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bonds of bros and brothers: Kinship and social bonding in postdispersal male macaques

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Group‐living animals often maintain a few very close affiliative relationships—social bonds—that can buffer them against many of the inevitable costs of gregariousness. Kinship plays a central role in the development of such social bonds. The bulk of research on kin biases in sociality has focused on philopatric females, who typically live in deeply kin‐structured systems, with matrilineal dominance rank inheritance and life‐long familiarity between kin. Closely related males, in contrast, are usually not close in rank or familiar, which offers the opportunity to test the importance of kinship per se in the formation of social bonds. So far, however, kin biases in male social bonding have only been tested in philopatric males, where familiarity remains a confounding factor. Here, we studied bonds between male Assamese macaques, a species in which males disperse from their natal groups and in which male bonds are known to affect fitness. Combining extensive behavioural data on 43 adult males over a 10‐year period with DNA microsatellite relatedness analyses, we find that postdispersal males form stronger relationships with the few close kin available in the group than with the average nonkin. However, males form the majority of their bonds with nonkin and may choose nonkin over available close kin to bond with. Our results show that kinship facilitates bond formation, but is not a prerequisite for it, which suggests that strong bonds are not restricted to kin in male mammals and that animals cooperate for both direct and indirect fitness benefits.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bonds of bros and brothers: Kinship and social bonding in postdispersal male macaques

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…[ 69 ] Note, however, that they treat infected paternal half‐siblings exactly as they treat infected distant kin or nonkin, even though paternal half‐siblings are every bit as related to them as are maternal ones, and can be recognized as kin. [ 70 ] Yet of course maternal half‐siblings are exposed to one another a great deal because they are raised together from birth, whilst paternal half‐siblings grow up in entirely different families. [ 70 ] I suggest, then, that mandrills’ disregard of contagion when attending to maternal kin might reflect not their genetic relationship, but their larger familiarity with them and hence with their parasites.…”

Section: It's a Small Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[ 70 ] Yet of course maternal half‐siblings are exposed to one another a great deal because they are raised together from birth, whilst paternal half‐siblings grow up in entirely different families. [ 70 ] I suggest, then, that mandrills’ disregard of contagion when attending to maternal kin might reflect not their genetic relationship, but their larger familiarity with them and hence with their parasites.…”

Section: It's a Small Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strangers look sicker (with implications in times of COVID‐19)

Bressan

2020

BioEssays

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We animals have evolved a variety of mechanisms to avoid conspecifics who might be infected. It is currently unclear whether and why this “behavioral immune system” targets unfamiliar individuals more than familiar ones. Here I answer this question in humans, using publicly available data of a recent study on 1969 participants from India and 1615 from the USA. The apparent health of a male stranger, as estimated from his face, and the comfort with contact with him were a direct function of his similarity to the men in the local community. This held true regardless of whether the face carried overt signs of infection. I conclude that our behavioral immune system is finely tuned to degrees of outgroupness — and that cues of outgroupness are partly processed as cues of infectiousness. These findings, which were consistent across the two cultures, support the notion that the pathogens of strangers are perceived as more dangerous.

show abstract

“…Severe male aggression towards females occurs but appears relatively infrequent for human observers. Female relatives form tight social relationships [33], including aggressive coalitions against males that can lead to male's death (in captivity: [37]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual coercion in a natural mandrill population

Smit

Baniel

Roura-Torres

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Increasing evidence indicates that sexual coercion is widespread. While some coercive strategies are conspicuous, such as forced copulation or sexual harassment, less is known about the ecology and evolution of intimidation, where repeated male aggression promotes future rather than immediate mating success with targeted females. Although known in humans, intimidation was recently reported in chimpanzees and chacma baboons, where males are regularly violent against females. Here, we investigate the nature of male coercive strategies in wild mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx), a primate living in large polygynandrous groups where severe male aggression towards females is rare and females can exert mate choice. Yet, we found support for all three predictions of the sexual coercion hypothesis, namely that male aggression (1) specifically targets sexually receptive females, (2) inflicts costs to these females, and (3) increases male mating success in the long-term. These results hold true when considering only non-physical threats, or only severe aggression. Finally, we show that high-ranking females are most targeted by males, probably because of their higher reproductive performances. These results indicate that sexual intimidation is widespread in sexually dimorphic and group-living mammals, can co-occur with female mate choice, and is most costly to the most attractive females.

show abstract

Same father, same face: Deep learning reveals selection for signaling kinship in a wild primate

Cited by 27 publications

References 46 publications

Bonds of bros and brothers: Kinship and social bonding in postdispersal male macaques

Bonds of bros and brothers: Kinship and social bonding in postdispersal male macaques

Strangers look sicker (with implications in times of COVID‐19)

Sexual coercion in a natural mandrill population

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About