Social network inheritance and differentiation in wild baboons

Roatti, Vittoria; Cowlishaw, Guy; Huchard, Élise; Carter, Alecia J.

doi:10.1098/rsos.230219

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 159 publications

(289 reference statements)

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“…In these species, immature males typically form weaker bonds with their mother and are less integrated in their matriline, and such sex differences may emerge as early as the first year of life (e.g. [71][72][73]94]). Hence, the birth of a younger sibling may foster the independence of juvenile males, as in free-ranging rhesus macaques [44], while juvenile females may instead react by strengthening their bond with their mother.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, (P4) juveniles who recently experienced the birth of a younger sibling, and especially those who experienced it at a young age, would display more tantrums and self-directed behaviours than those who did not. For (P2−P4), we explored potential sex-differences in juveniles' reactions to TTS, as sex-differences in mother-offspring bond and social behaviour typically emerge early during development in cercopithecines [71][72][73].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An early-life challenge: becoming an older sibling in wild mandrills

Delaunay,

Cossu-Doye,

Roura-Torres

et al. 2024

R. Soc. Open Sci.

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In monotocous mammals, most individuals experience the birth of a younger sibling. This period may induce losses in maternal care and can be physiologically, energetically and emotionally challenging for the older sibling, yet has rarely been studied in wild primates. We used behavioural data collected from a natural population of mandrills to investigate changes in maternal care and mother–juvenile relationship throughout the transition to siblinghood (TTS), by comparing juveniles who recently experienced the birth of a younger sibling, to juveniles who did not. We found that the TTS was associated with an abrupt cessation of the weaning process for the juvenile, and to a decrease in maternal affiliation. Juveniles’ reactions were sex-specific, as males associated less with their mother, while females tended to groom their mother more often after the birth of their sibling. Despite the substantial loss of maternal care, juveniles did not show an increase in conflict or anxiety-related behaviours. This study contributes to explain why short interbirth intervals often pose a risk to juveniles’ survival in monotocous primates. Our results contrast existing studies and further highlight the importance of examining the TTS in species and populations with various life histories and ecologies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An early-life challenge: becoming an older sibling in wild mandrills

Delaunay,

Cossu-Doye,

Roura-Torres

et al. 2024

R. Soc. Open Sci.

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“…Whether this pattern reflects the development of true social preferences for mothers or is instead a passive by-product of spatial proximity patterns between infants and mothers remains an important open question for future work (e.g. [35]). In addition, future work identifying the factors that explain variation in the identity of the first grooming partner as well as how mothers influence other aspects of social development in baboons and other species is warranted.…”

Section: (B) Environmental Predictors Of Infant Grooming Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, very few studies consider potential genetic contributions to behavioural development in conjunction with environmental and demographic factors (e.g. [6,15,18,20,26,[28][29][30][31][32][33]; but see [13,16,17,19,34,35]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental, sex-specific and genetic determinants of infant social behaviour in a wild primate

Lange,

Griffin,

Fogel

et al. 2023

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Affiliative social bonds are linked to fitness components in many social mammals. However, despite their importance, little is known about how the tendency to form social bonds develops in young animals, or if the timing of development is heritable and thus can evolve. Using four decades of longitudinal observational data from a wild baboon population, we assessed the environmental determinants of an important social developmental milestone in baboons—the age at which a young animal first grooms a conspecific—and we assessed how the rates at which offspring groom their mothers develops during the juvenile period. We found that grooming development differs between the sexes: female infants groom at an earlier age and reach equal rates of grooming with their mother earlier than males. We also found that age at first grooming for both sexes is weakly heritable ( h 2 = 0.043, 95% CI: 0.002–0.110). These results show that sex differences in grooming emerge at a young age; that strong, equitable social relationships between mothers and daughters begin very early in life; and that age at first grooming is heritable and therefore can be shaped by natural selection.

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“…While mothers provide the primary care, other group members, including fathers, may contribute to the defense and carrying of the young (e.g., Charpentier et al, 2008). The extended need for care-taking also paves the way for social learning of food items (Whiten & van de Waal, 2018), the development of intricate communication (Maestripieri & Call, 1996), and the inheritance of social network positions (Roatti et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overcoming Pitfalls when Estimating Variation in Parental Care: A Simulation Study

Mundry,

Dal Pesco,

Avilès de Diego

et al. 2023

Preprint

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1. Background. In many animal species, parents allocate resources to enhance offspring survival and thereby reproductive success ('parental investment'). The level of parental investment varies between species and individuals, and one critical question in behavioral ecology and evolution is to which degree variation in parental investment affects offspring development and survival. Crucially, parental investment varies with offspring age, which creates non-trivial problems for statistical analyses, specifically when sampling is incomplete or biased. 2. Methods. We conducted a simulation study to illustrate the problem when using average parental investment while not correcting for offspring age, and propose a modeling approach to correct for offspring age and sampling biases. We simulated a set of different scenarios, varying with regard to sample size, sampling scheme, and variation in parental investment. To model parent behavior as a function of offspring age, we fitted a Generalized Linear Mixed Model for each simulated data set. We included offspring age as a fixed effect and extracted the Best Linear Unbiased Predictors (BLUPs) for the random intercept of parent identity. These BLUPs represent the parental investment corrected for offspring age. Finally, we assessed how our proposed modeling approach compares to the conventional approach. 3. Results. The proposed modeling approach was clearly superior to the conventional approach. More specifically, the conventional approach clearly overestimated the variation between parents, and even diagnosed appreciable variation when there was none in the simulated data. This bias was exacerbated by incomplete or unbalanced sampling schemes. 4. Conclusion. Our simulation study clearly demonstrates the necessity of correcting for offspring age in analyses of parental investment. We strongly suggest including random slopes of offspring age within parent-offspring dyads, because doing so can reveal parent-specific trajectories of the modeled behavior against offspring age. Our approach allows for the inclusion of further categorical and continuous predictor variables that may affect parental investment, such as parity or ecological conditions. In summary, the proposed modeling approach has several advantages over conventional methods.

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Social network inheritance and differentiation in wild baboons

Cited by 6 publications

References 159 publications

An early-life challenge: becoming an older sibling in wild mandrills

An early-life challenge: becoming an older sibling in wild mandrills

Environmental, sex-specific and genetic determinants of infant social behaviour in a wild primate

Overcoming Pitfalls when Estimating Variation in Parental Care: A Simulation Study

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