Social bonds predict future cooperation in male Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus

Berghänel, Andreas; Ostner, Julia; Schröder, Uta; Schülke, Oliver

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.02.009

Cited by 111 publications

(143 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…We corroborated findings for Barbary macaques by Berghänel, Ostner, Schröder, et al (2011) andSchülke (2011) on the role of social bonds in supporter selection for coalitions. We largely ruled out that the correlation is driven by spatial proximity alone and added a long-term perspective of male social relationships showing that strong social bonds are equitable and stable for 2 years in wild groups.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Male social bonds and rank predict supporter selection in cooperative aggression in wild Barbary macaques

Young¹,

Majolo²,

Schülke³

et al. 2014

Animal Behaviour

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Highlights• Wild male Barbary macaques formed stable, strong, differentiated social bonds.• Strong bonds endured even through intensely competitive mating seasons.• Rank and bond strength predicted which bystander males were recruited to coalitions.• Males rejected recruitment from weakly bonded and low-ranked recruiters.• Supporter selection is based on two independent criteria. Cooperation in coalitions against coresident males has been shown to increase male reproductive success directly via increased mating success (levelling coalitions) or indirectly via increased dominance success (rank-changing coalitions). Two mechanisms guiding coalitionary supporter selection have been proposed. First, supporter selection may depend on the supporters available, whereby an animal chooses the highest ranking supporter present to maximize their chance of winning. Second, males may also select supporters based on the strength of the social bond they share with them. Different studies on male Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus, have produced support for both mechanisms but crucial assumptions and predictions remained untested. The aim of this study was to test predictions derived for both mechanisms after establishing whether Barbary macaque males formed social bonds. We observed two wild groups of macaques in Morocco (>2000 h focal animal data) and recorded the identity of males recruited to join a coalition, of all bystanders, and of the coalitionary target. We demonstrate for the first time that male Barbary macaques formed strong, equitable social bonds that were stable for 2 years. Corroborating earlier studies we found that males selected supporters by more than one criterion, namely by the strength of their social bonds to the potential ally and by their dominance rank position among potential supporters. The animals who received recruitment signals were more likely to reject the recruitment invitation the weaker their social bond to the recruiter was and if the target was higher ranking than the recruiter. In a subset in which we examined only levelling coalitions that would flatten the mating skew, males only used the mechanism that would maximize the feasibility of the coalition by more frequently selecting the highest ranked bystander. These results suggest that males flexibly apply different criteria for supporter selection depending on the context of the conflict. Keywords bystander; coalition; Macaca sylvanus; male-male competition; recruitment; social bonds Social relationships among animals living in stable social groups are competitive as well as affiliative, since group members compete for access to resources while establishing social bonds with both kin and nonkin (Cords, 1997, Hinde, 1976, Hinde, 1983, Massen et al., 2010, Silk, 2005and Silk, 2007. If dyadic affiliative relationships are differentiated within a social group, those relationships that are characterized by high frequencies of affiliative interactions, a relatively balanced directionality of exchange and temporal stability can be construed as...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Male social bonds and rank predict supporter selection in cooperative aggression in wild Barbary macaques

Young¹,

Majolo²,

Schülke³

et al. 2014

Animal Behaviour

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“…via coalition formation (Widdig et al 2000;Young et al 2014a). Being provided with his preferred infant the approached male could be more likely to establish an affiliative relationship with the holder, which may become beneficial in terms of coalitionary support as shown in the study species (Berghänel et al 2011;Young et al 2014a). The infant preferred by the receiver may be a more effective "buffer" against aggression because the approached male may tend to avoid a conflict that could harm his favourite infant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Infant handling is very seasonal. Male interest in infants peaks shortly after birth and rapidly decreases (see Berghänel et al 2011). As a consequence, relationships are transient and males have very little time to assess the quality of others' infant-male relationships and to implement this knowledge during bridging interactions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Triadic awareness predicts partner choice in male–infant–male interactions in Barbary macaques

et al. 2016

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Social knowledge beyond one's direct relationships is a key to successful maneuvering of the social world. Individuals gather information on the quality of social relationships between their group companions, which has been termed triadic awareness. Evidence of the use of triadic awareness in natural contexts is limited mainly to conflict management. Here we investigated triadic awareness in wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in the context of bridging interactions defined as male-infant-male interactions whereby a male (actor) presents an infant to another male (receiver) in order to initiate an affiliative interaction with that male. Analyses based on 1,263 hours of focal observations on ten infants of one wild social group in Morocco supported the hypothesis that males use their knowledge of the relationship between infants and other adult males when choosing a male as a partner for bridging interactions. Specifically, (i) the number of bridging interactions among initiator-infant-receiver triads was affected by the strength of the infant-receiver relationship and (ii) when two males were available as bridging partners, a male was more likely to be chosen as the receiver the stronger his social relationship with the infant in comparison to the other available male was. This demonstrates that non-human primates establish triadic awareness also of temporarily rather dynamic infant-male relationships and use it in naturally occurring affiliative context. Our results contribute to the discussion about the mechanism underlying the acquisition of triadic awareness and the benefits of its usage and lend support to hypotheses linking social complexity to the evolution of complex cognition.

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“…The Barbary macaque is a relatively tolerant species (Thierry et al 2004), yet also sharing some social features with more despotic macaque species such as low frequency of counter-aggression (Balasubramaniam et al 2012) and a steep dominance hierarchy (Kaburu et al 2012). Barbary macaques form coalitions, reciprocate grooming or inter-change it for other benefits, show food tolerance, and affiliate often with other group members of different age and sex (Widdig et al 2000;Berghänel et al 2011;Carne et al 2011). Since these factors are expected to favour the occurrence of cooperation (or to represent forms of cooperation, as in the case of coalition formation), this species is of particular interest to experimentally assess cooperative behaviours.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation in wild Barbary macaques: factors affecting free partner choice

Molesti

Majolo

2015

Anim Cogn

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A key aspect of cooperation is partner choice: choosing the best available partner improves the chances of a successful cooperative interaction and decreases the likelihood of being exploited.However, in studies on cooperation subjects are rarely allowed to freely choose their partners.Group-living animals live in a complex social environment where they can choose among several social partners differing in, for example, sex, age, temperament, or dominance status.Our study investigated whether wild Barbary macaques succeed to cooperate using an experimental apparatus, and whether individual and social factors affect their choice of partners and the degree of cooperation. We used the string pulling task that requires two monkeys to manipulate simultaneously a rope in order to receive a food reward. The monkeys were free to interact with the apparatus or not and to choose their partner. The results showed that Barbary macaques are able to pair up with a partner to cooperate using the apparatus. High level of tolerance between monkeys was necessary for the initiation of successful cooperation, while strong social bond positively affected the maintenance of cooperative interactions. Dominance status, sex, age and temperament of the subjects also affected their choice and performance.These factors thus need to be taken into account in cooperative experiment on animals.Tolerance between social partners is likely to be a prerequisite for the evolution of cooperation.

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Social bonds predict future cooperation in male Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus

Cited by 111 publications

References 76 publications

Male social bonds and rank predict supporter selection in cooperative aggression in wild Barbary macaques

Male social bonds and rank predict supporter selection in cooperative aggression in wild Barbary macaques

Triadic awareness predicts partner choice in male–infant–male interactions in Barbary macaques

Cooperation in wild Barbary macaques: factors affecting free partner choice

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