Low-ranking female Japanese macaques make efforts for social grooming

Abstract

Grooming is essential to build social relationships in primates. Its importance is universal among animals from different ranks; however, rank-related differences in feeding patterns can lead to conflicts between feeding and grooming in low-ranking animals. Unifying the effects of dominance rank on feeding and grooming behaviors contributes to revealing the importance of grooming. Here, I tested whether the grooming behavior of low-ranking females were similar to that of high-ranking females despite differences in their feeding patterns. I followed 9 Japanese macaques Macaca fuscata fuscata adult females from the Arashiyama group, and analyzed the feeding patterns and grooming behaviors of low- and high-ranking females. Low-ranking females fed on natural foods away from the provisioning site, whereas high-ranking females obtained more provisioned food at the site. Due to these differences in feeding patterns, low-ranking females spent less time grooming than high-ranking females. However, both low- and high-ranking females performed grooming around the provisioning site, which was linked to the number of neighboring individuals for low-ranking females and feeding on provisioned foods at the site for high-ranking females. The similarity in grooming area led to a range and diversity of grooming partners that did not differ with rank. Thus, low-ranking females can obtain small amounts of provisioned foods and perform grooming with as many partners around the provisioning site as high-ranking females. These results highlight the efforts made by low-ranking females to perform grooming and suggest the importance of grooming behavior in group-living primates.

Behavioral Asymmetries among Mother-Infant Dyads of Syntopic Macaques (Macaca Assamensis and M. Mulatta) in Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park, Nepal

“…On contrary, no significant influence of ranks was found in activity budgets of rhesus macaque mothers. This result contradicted with the study carried out in Japanese macaques [49]. Only significant differences were found in moving and resting between medium ranking and low-ranking mothers.…”

“…Thus, rhesus macaque mothers of this study spent almost equal amount of time in all activities. The time allocated for different activities by different ranking mothers of the rhesus macaque contradicted with that of Japanese macaques [49] which might be the result of smaller group size. As suggested by van Schaik, et al (1983) [50], among long-tailed macaques, an increase in group size leads to less favorable time budgets, the rhesus macaques of this study were smaller in group size, which led to more favorable time budgets.…”

“…Low-ranking mothers were clearly at disadvantages in feeding competition at the provisioning site, as found in the studies of other provisioned populations [42][43][44][45]. Because of being at disadvantage in feeding site, low-ranking mothers of Assam macaques moved more frequently than the high-ranking mothers, as opposed to various studies carried out in Japanese macaques [46][47][48][49]. As suggested by Agetsuma and Nakagawa (1998), there might be a trade-off among feeding, moving and grooming time.…”

Effects of Hierarchical Steepness on Grooming Patterns in Female Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana)

“…Several studies have shown that grooming, especially among kin and individuals of similar social rank, is reciprocal, both across individual grooming bouts and over time (Schino and Aureli, 2008). In other studies, grooming was found to be interchanged for rank-related benefits (tolerance at feeding sites: Gumert and Ho, 2008;Carne et al, 2011;Tiddi et al, 2011;Kurihara, 2016; access to infants in response to aunting behavior: Henzi and Barrett, 2002;Tiddi et al, 2010;Fruteau et al, 2011;agonistic support: Hemelrijk and Ek, 1991;Carne et al, 2011; or increased mating opportunities: Gumert, 2007;Sonnweber et al, 2015).…”

“…In this regard, the degree to which a species is characterized by a rigid or relaxed dominance hierarchy is considered an important factor in balancing the frequency and context of cooperative interactions and competitive interactions among group members. For example, in species characterized by a strict or linear hierarchy, individuals may target grooming partners of similar social rank or attempt to groom up the hierarchy in an attempt to form alliances that enhance their social rank within the group (Xia et al, 2013;Kurihara, 2016). Within such a system, higherranking individuals typically receive more grooming than they give (e.g., mandrills, Mandrillus sphinx, Schino and Pellegrini, 2011;Tibetan macaques, M. thibetana, Xia et al, 2012, 2013.…”