Share your sweets: Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus) willingness to share highly attractive, monopolizable food sources.

Abstract

All over the world, humans (Homo sapiens) display resource-sharing behavior, and common patterns of sharing seem to exist across cultures. Humans are not the only primates to share, and observations from the wild have long documented food sharing behavior in our closest phylogenetic relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). However, few controlled studies have been made in which groups of Pan are introduced to food items that may be shared or monopolized by a first food possessor, and very few studies have examined what happens to these sharing patterns if the food in question is a highly attractive, monopolizable food source. The one study to date to include food quality as the independent variable used different types of food as high- and low-value items, making differences in food divisibility and size potentially confounding factors. It was the aim of the present study to examine the sharing behavior of groups of captive chimpanzees and bonobos when introducing the same type of food (branches) manipulated to be of 2 different degrees of desirability (with or without syrup). Results showed that the large majority of food transfers in both species came about as sharing in which group members were allowed to cofeed or remove food from the stock of the food possessor, and the introduction of high-value food resulted in more sharing, not less. Food sharing behavior differed between species in that chimpanzees displayed significantly more begging behavior than bonobos. Bonobos, instead, engaged in sexual invitations, which the chimpanzees never did. (PsycINFO Database Record

Rethinking the evolution of property and possession: A review and methodological proposition

“…One of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee, shares cognitive skills and biases toward objects with humans (as discussed in the “Comparative Cognition” section above). Our other closest living relative, the bonobo ( Pan paniscus ) does not show respect for possession norms to the same extent as chimpanzees, likely due to lower punishment costs . Chimpanzees are more manipulative with objects than bonobos, which we suggest makes chimpanzees more likely to illustrate property behaviors in the wild .…”

“…Our other closest living relative, the bonobo (Pan paniscus) does not show respect for possession norms to the same extent as chimpanzees, likely due to lower punishment costs. 72 Chimpanzees are more manipulative with objects than bonobos, which we suggest makes chimpanzees more likely to illustrate property behaviors in the wild. 73 In addition, chimpanzees are a suitable model species for stone tool using hominins that may have had a patriarchal, rank based society.…”

Primates’ Socio-Cognitive Abilities: What Kind of Comparisons Makes Sense?

“…Chimpanzees and bonobos, also, show differences in tolerance towards conspecifics in food-retrieval tasks . See also Melis et al 2006), and display different types of behaviour in food-sharing situations (Byrnit et al 2015). Although very closely related phylogenetically, chimpanzees and bonobos inhabit different ecologies with different types of food pressures.…”