Back to the Future: A Glance Over Wolf Social Behavior to Understand Dog–Human Relationship

Abstract

Simple SummaryWolves, the ancestors of dogs, are one of the most cooperative canine species. This cooperative propensity derives from the fact that each subject needs other group members to obtain resources and increase survival. The pack functions as a unit in which each individual collaborates in territory defence, hunting, and rearing of offspring. For this reason, even though a clear hierarchy exists among wolves, subordinates can provide help to dominants to obtain social tolerance in a sort of commodity exchange. Wolves can make peace after aggression, console victims of a conflict, and calm down the aggressors. This set of behaviors, also called post-conflict strategies, requires a social attentiveness towards others’ emotional state and the ability to coordinate appropriate reactions. Adult wolves also play. They engage in play fighting, which strongly resembles real fighting, by finely modulating their motor actions and quickly interpreting playmates’ intentions, thus maintaining the non-serious playful mood. All these cognitive and social skills were a fertile ground for the artificial selection operated by humans to redirect the cooperative propensity of wolves towards dog–human affective relationship.AbstractThis review focuses on wolf sociobiology to delineate the traits of cooperative baggage driven by natural selection (wolf-wolf cooperation) and better understand the changes obtained by artificial selection (dog-human cooperation). We selected some behaviors of the dog’s ancestors that provide the basis for the expression of a cooperative society, such as dominance relationships, leverage power, post-aggressive strategies, and playful dynamics between pack members. When possible, we tried to compare the data on wolves with those coming from the dog literature. Wolves can negotiate commodities when the interacting subjects occupy different ranking positions by bargaining social tolerance with helping and support. They are able to manage group disruption by engaging in sophisticated post-conflict maneuvers, thus restoring the relationship between the opponents and reducing the spreading of aggression in the group. Wolves engage in social play also as adults to manipulate social relationships. They are able to flexibly adjust their playful interactions to minimize the risk of escalation. Complex cognitive abilities and communicative skills are probably the main proximate causes for the evolution of inter-specific cooperation in wolves.

The wild ancestors of domestic animals as a neglected and threatened component of biodiversity

“…Assortative mating could be reinforced when wild populations and those of domestic origin have different social systems. Wolves exhibit a level of social complexity and cooperation that is not seen in wildcats (Cordoni & Palagi, 2019). It is possible that feral dogs are, therefore, less able to interbreed with wolves than feral cats are with wildcats, and this may help to explain why the latter has been more prone to hybrid swarm formation.…”

The Gossip Paradox: why do bacteria share genes?

“…If the advantages of recombination are not enough to stabilize plasmid sharing, let us turn our attention to another evolutionary paradox, and its resolutions. The second major paradox in the study of evolutionary dynamics is the emergence and maintenance of cooperation: slime molds cooperate in order to form stalks and bud [45], wolves hunt in packs [10], meerkats keep watch, and humans cooperate on vast and complex scales spanning the entire globe [60] and beyond [2]. Cooperation is powerful, and yet at every turn, it is the organism that most benefits its own lineage that evolution will select.…”

Intra- and inter-specific cortisol coregulation

“…Akin to the human parent-infant relationship, dog-owner dyads represent a good model for cortisol coregulation research because of their strong attachment (Meehan et al, 2017;Payne et al, 2015), in addition to the complex human-directed sociocognitive capabilities of companion dogs (e.g. Cordoni and Palagi, 2019;Lazzaroni et al, 2020). Therefore, research into coregulation between dogs and their owners could improve our understanding of this interspecific attachment bond, as well as contribute to our wider understanding of cortisol coregulation.…”

“…It is believed to be these cooperative abilities, accompanied by selection (self and/or artificial) for behaviours that increase the propensity for wolves to be in close proximity to humans (Lazzaroni et al, 2020;Pendleton et al, 2018;g. reduction of flight initiation distance, Pörtl and Jung, 2017), that underpinned the shift from cooperating with conspecifics to doghuman cooperation, hence instigating the process of domestication (Cordoni and Palagi, 2019;Range and Virányi, 2015). Taken together, it seems unlikely that a mechanism to modulate conspecifics' HPA axis activity would evolve as dogs are 123 moving away from the cooperative pack socioecology and living in closer proximity to humans.…”

“…Over the last 30,000 years, dogs have evolved closely alongside humans, and artificial selection for traits such as tameness, docility, and sociality has resulted in the companion dogs we are familiar with today (Cordoni and Palagi, 2019;Driscoll et al, 2009). The process of domestication is believed to have enhanced dogs' receptiveness to social cues, particularly those of humans, which in turn contributes to the formation of dog-human attachment bonds (Payne et al, 2015;Udell et al, 2010).…”