Do friends help each other? Patterns of female coalition formation in wild bonobos at Wamba

Tokuyama, Nahoko; Furuichi, Takeshi

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.06.021

Cited by 131 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…In such a society where one sex is not clearly dominant over the other, individual decisions to associate with one sex more than the other might be less crucial than as in male-dominated chimpanzee societies [49]. This seems contradictory to the general coalitionary pattern found in bonobos where most coalitions are formed between females with males as the primary targets [53,54]. Bonobo females appear to form differentiated social relationships by, for instance, selectively and consistently grooming certain females more than others [85].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-specific association patterns in bonobos and chimpanzees reflect species differences in cooperation

et al. 2017

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In several group-living species, individuals' social preferences are thought to be influenced by cooperation. For some societies with fission–fusion dynamics, sex-specific association patterns reflect sex differences in cooperation in within- and between-group contexts. In our study, we investigated this hypothesis further by comparing sex-specific association patterns in two closely related species, chimpanzees and bonobos, which differ in the level of between-group competition and in the degree to which sex and kinship influence dyadic cooperation. Here, we used long-term party composition data collected on five chimpanzee and two bonobo communities and assessed, for each individual of 10 years and older, the sex of its top associate and of all conspecifics with whom it associated more frequently than expected by chance. We found clear species differences in association patterns. While in all chimpanzee communities males and females associated more with same-sex partners, in bonobos males and females tended to associate preferentially with females, but the female association preference for other females is lower than in chimpanzees. Our results also show that, for bonobos (but not for chimpanzees), association patterns were predominantly driven by mother–offspring relationships. These species differences in association patterns reflect the high levels of male–male cooperation in chimpanzees and of mother–son cooperation in bonobos. Finally, female chimpanzees showed intense association with a few other females, and male chimpanzees showed more uniform association across males. In bonobos, the most differentiated associations were from males towards females. Chimpanzee male association patterns mirror fundamental human male social traits and, as in humans, may have evolved as a response to strong between-group competition. The lack of such a pattern in a closely related species with a lower degree of between-group competition further supports this notion.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-specific association patterns in bonobos and chimpanzees reflect species differences in cooperation

et al. 2017

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“… References: 1 White, ; 2 Waller, ; 3 White & Chapman, ; 4 White, Brand & Hickmott, unpublished data; 5 Hohmann & Fruth, ; 6 Hohmann & Fruth, ; 7 Mulavwa et al, ; 8 Ryu, Hill, & Furuichi, ; 9 Tokuyama & Furuichi, ; 10 Data are from current study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Among the E1 community at the Wamba study site, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), females are also disproportionately represented in parties relative to the philopatric males (reviewed in Furuichi, ). Female bonobos cooperate in a range of contexts, including co‐defending and sharing access to food resources (Hohmann & Fruth, ; White & Wood, ; Yamamoto, ) and supporting each other in coalitionary aggression that is often directed against males (Surbeck & Hohmann, ; Tokuyama & Furuichi, ). By maintaining high levels of association, females may have more opportunities to form cooperative alliances that give them competitive advantages over males (Clay, Furuichi, & de Waal, ; Furuichi, ; Jaeggi, Boose, White, & Gurven, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable and fluctuating social preferences and implications for cooperation among female bonobos at LuiKotale, Salonga National Park, DRC

Moscovice

Douglas

Martínez-Íñigo

et al. 2017

American J Phys Anthropol

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Objectives Female bonobos (Pan paniscus) are characterized as highly affiliative and cooperative, but few studies have quantified the strength and stability of female intra‐sexual relationships or explored how variation in social relationships influences cooperation. We measure female social preferences, identify causes of variation in preferences, and test whether variation in social preferences predicts food sharing or coalitionary support. Methods Data were collected over 3 years from females in the Bompusa community at LuiKotale, DRC. We measured genetic relatedness and constructed social preference indices for party association, proximity, grooming, GG‐rubbing and aggression. We identified preferred social partners based on permutation tests and measured stability using Mantel tests. We used factor analysis to identify inter‐relationships between preference indices and used LMMs to test whether variation in social preferences was explained by relatedness, rank differences, having dependent young or co‐residency time. We used GLMMs to test whether variation in social preferences predicted food sharing or coalitionary support. Results All females had preferred non‐kin partners for proximity, grooming or GG‐rubbing, but only grooming preferences were stable across years. Association indices were higher among lactating females, and aggression was lower among females with longer co‐residency times. The factor analysis identified one factor, representing proximity and GG‐rubbing preferences, labeled behavioral coordination. Dyads with higher levels of behavioral coordination were more likely to share food. Conclusions Female bonobos exhibit stable, differentiated grooming relationships outside of kinship and philopatry. Females also exhibit flexible proximity and GG‐rubbing preferences that may facilitate cooperation with a wider range of social partners.

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“…Observational studies with captive animals have shown further that, over the long-term, chimpanzees reciprocally groom and share food with others (11)(12)(13)(14). Bonobos also cooperate in a number of contexts (15)(16)(17)(18), suggesting that such cooperative tendencies have deep phylogenetic roots.…”

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confidence: 99%

Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost

Schmelz

Grueneisen

Kabalak

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Humans regularly provide others with resources at a personal cost to themselves. Chimpanzees engage in some cooperative behaviors in the wild as well, but their motivational underpinnings are unclear. In three experiments, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) always chose between an option delivering food both to themselves and a partner and one delivering food only to themselves. In one condition, a conspecific partner had just previously taken a personal risk to make this choice available. In another condition, no assistance from the partner preceded the subject’s decision. Chimpanzees made significantly more prosocial choices after receiving their partner’s assistance than when no assistance was given (experiment 1) and, crucially, this was the case even when choosing the prosocial option was materially costly for the subject (experiment 2). Moreover, subjects appeared sensitive to the risk of their partner’s assistance and chose prosocially more often when their partner risked losing food by helping (experiment 3). These findings demonstrate experimentally that chimpanzees are willing to incur a material cost to deliver rewards to a conspecific, but only if that conspecific previously assisted them, and particularly when this assistance was risky. Some key motivations involved in human cooperation thus may have deeper phylogenetic roots than previously suspected

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Do friends help each other? Patterns of female coalition formation in wild bonobos at Wamba

Cited by 131 publications

References 90 publications

Sex-specific association patterns in bonobos and chimpanzees reflect species differences in cooperation

Sex-specific association patterns in bonobos and chimpanzees reflect species differences in cooperation

Stable and fluctuating social preferences and implications for cooperation among female bonobos at LuiKotale, Salonga National Park, DRC

Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost

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