In wolves, play behaviour reflects the partners' affiliative and dominance relationship

Abstract

Puppy packs (consisting of only puppies) and mixed-age packs (composed of puppies and adults) were observed to test whether social play can be used for assessing and establishing social relations in wolves, Canis lupus. Differently from previous studies, we looked at play behaviours in detail, allowing us to categorize play interactions as either competitive or relaxed, and predicted that different types of play would be associated with different relationships between individuals. We found that the more time dyads spent in relaxed play, the more affiliative interactions they exchanged outside of play. In the mixed-age packs, dyads that spent more time in both relaxed and competitive play showed fewer exchanges of aggressive behaviours. Conversely, in puppy packs, the more time dyads spent in competitive play, the more aggressive interactions were exchanged outside of play. Since clear dominance relationships emerged in the mixed-age packs, but not in puppy packs, we suggest that play can help to reduce the frequency of aggressive interactions only when a clear hierarchy exists between pack members. Furthermore, we found that in both puppy and mixed-age packs, dominance relationships were reflected and rarely reversed during play. Finally, dyads with a less clear dominance relationship spent more time playing in a competitive way. Overall, our results support the social assessment hypothesis suggesting that social relationships outside of play are reflected during playful interactions. Moreover, we revealed how different types of play, that is, playing in a competitive or relaxed way, may be related to different social relationships. This distinction between play types has not been acknowledged before but could help researchers better understand the functions of play in different species.

Sharing playful mood: rapid facial mimicry in Suricata suricatta

“…The large communicative repertoire of meerkats seems to provide the basis for their behavioural synchronization and cooperation during group activities (Gall et al 2017). We hypothesize that, as it occurs in other highly cohesive species (wolves, Cordoni 2009, Cafazzo et al 2018dogs, Palagi et al 2015, Byosiere et al 2016spotted hyena, Drea et al 1996;Tonkean macacques, Scopa and Palagi 2016;bonobos, Palagi 2008), in meerkats the capacity to manage play fighting can be achieved by the use of specific communicative signals of both auditory and visual nature.…”

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

“…Peaceful cohesiveness is a feature of wolf society that is guaranteed also by playful activity [54,60,78]. Although most studies have focused on play in domestic dogs [6,79,80,81], this behavior does not appear as an artefact of domestication since also wolves play even during adulthood [78,82].…”

“…It has been suggested that, through play, adult subjects can evaluate and manipulate the social relationships with group-members [71]. Cafazzo and colleagues [82] investigated play behavior in four captive wolf packs, two composed by immature peers and the other two by mixed-age subjects (puppies and adults). A positive linkage between play frequency and relationship quality was found; indeed, those dyads that spent more time in relaxed play (defined as play sessions involving a limited number of offensive patterns) engaged in more interactions belonging to the affinitive domain.…”

“…The observation of the wolf pack hosted at the Pistoia Zoo (Italy) led to contrasting results compare to those of Cafazzo and colleagues [82], although direct comparison can be misleading due to the different conditions under which the wolves were reared. In the Pistoia group, composed by adult related individuals, playful activity was not affected by both social relationship quality and aggression level, but it was strictly linked to dominance.…”

The link between selection for function and human-directed play behaviour in dogs

“…In general, it is uncommon that animal play behaviour extends to adulthood, although some examples also exist for play behaviour occurring among individuals of mixed age-classes (e.g. [5,6]). Also, although examples exist (e.g.…”