The value of grooming to female primates

Henazi, S. Peter; Barrett, Louise

doi:10.1007/bf02557701

Cited by 235 publications

(184 citation statements)

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“…Furthermore, previous studies on captive rhesus macaque revealed that an exaggerated increase in grooming can lead to maladaptive behaviours such as over-grooming [25]. However, literature on semi-free ranging Barbary macaques and other non-human primates reported grooming time-budgets similar to that found in the current study [27,28]. Moreover, in some circumstances, Barbary macaques might perform this behaviour even for longer time [28].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

New food provision strategy for a colony of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus): effects on social hierarchy?

Sandri¹,

Regaiolli²,

Vespiniani³

et al. 2017

Integr Food Nutr Metab

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A previous study on lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus) revealed that providing whole rather than chopped food increased the dietary diversity of all individuals and the time spent feeding [7]. Another study on Sulawesi crested black macaques (Macaca nigra) showed that whole food provision had no significant effect on feeding modalities and time and agonistic behaviours. However, whole food provision allowed subordinate macaques to obtain more food [4]. Similar positive effects on sociality have been found in siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus) [5] and bonobos (Pan paniscus) [8]. Therefore, despite being widespread among zoos, chopping food seems not to be an optimal strategy [2,5,7].The aim of this study is to assess the effects of different food provision forms (chopped vs whole food) on individual and social behaviour of a colony of zoo Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) hosted in Parco Natura Viva (Italy). In particular, the study aims at evaluating the impact of food provision form on the macaque welfare, comparing the behaviour of the animals in the presence of chopped rather than whole fruit and vegetable. Moreover, we aim at establishing AbstractIn several zoological institutions, food is chopped into small pieces even though animals are skilled in processing much larger or even whole food items. Food chopping is usually aimed at enabling all individuals in a group to obtain enough food, preventing wastage, encouraging foraging behaviour, avoiding aggression during feeding. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of different food provision forms (chopped vs whole food) on the behaviour and social hierarchy of a colony of zoo Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) hosted in Parco Natura Viva (Italy). The study was made of three conditions: the baseline-chopped food was provided; the Two Whole Food condition-two whole fruits and two whole vegetables per subject were provided; the One Whole Food condition-one whole fruit and one whole vegetable per subject were provided. For each condition, two daily 10-minute sessions per subject were run. Continuous focal animal sampling method was used to collect individual and social behaviours to assess the welfare of the Barbary macaques in the three different conditions. Moreover, for each condition, the dominance hierarchy was evaluated using the Clutton-Brock index (CBI) to assess the effects of different food provision forms on the social relationships between individuals. According to our results, macaques spent more time feeding in the baseline than in both the TWF and OWF condition. In addition, affiliative behaviours, particularly grooming, were performed more in the whole food condition than in the baseline. Within females, the hierarchy was not significantly affected by different food presentations and a decrease of aggressive behaviour in a whole food condition was found. Therefore, presenting whole food seemed to have a positive effect on the welfare of this colony, promoting natural behaviour and social cohesion. The presence of individual and socia...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

New food provision strategy for a colony of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus): effects on social hierarchy?

Sandri¹,

Regaiolli²,

Vespiniani³

et al. 2017

Integr Food Nutr Metab

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show abstract

“…Nevertheless, grooming may be the most impor tant behavior used by primates for maintaining social rela tionships (Henzi and Barrett, 1999;Schino, 2001). As a consequence, the time an individual attributes to grooming will likely influence the quality and/or the quantity of its social bonds (Dunbar, 1991(Dunbar, , 1992bLehmann et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies have shown that when an individual regularly grooms a particular partner, it seems to be more tolerant with this partner and more likely to support it during a conflict (without suggesting causality). Likewise, the partner in question typically reciprocates with the same tolerance and support (Henzi and Barrett, 1999;Dunbar et al, 2009). However, grooming needs time, and time is a limited resource (Dunbar, 1992b;Lehmann et al, 2007;Majolo et al, 2008;Pollard and Blumstein, 2008;Dunbar et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group size, grooming and fission in primates: A modeling approach based on group structure

Sueur

Deneubourg²,

Petit

et al. 2011

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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a b s t r a c tIn social animals, fission is a common mode of group proliferation and dispersion and may be affected by genetic or other social factors. Sociality implies preserving relationships between group members. An increase in group size and/or in competition for food within the group can result in decrease certain social interactions between members, and the group may split irreversibly as a consequence. One individual may try to maintain bonds with a maximum of group members in order to keep group cohesion, i.e. proximity and stable relationships. However, this strategy needs time and time is often limited. In addition, previous studies have shown that whatever the group size, an individual interacts only with certain grooming partners. There, we develop a computational model to assess how dynamics of group cohesion are related to group size and to the structure of grooming relationships. Groups' sizes after simulated fission are compared to observed sizes of 40 groups of primates. Results showed that the relationship between grooming time and group size is dependent on how each individual attributes grooming time to its social partners, i.e. grooming a few number of preferred partners or grooming equally or not all partners. The number of partners seemed to be more important for the group cohesion than the grooming time itself. This structural constraint has important consequences on group sociality, as it gives the possibility of competition for grooming partners, attraction for high ranking individuals as found in primates' groups. It could, however, also have implications when considering the cognitive capacities of primates.

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“…We, therefore, propose that the necessity of spatial centrality notwithstanding, the lion-tailed macaque females should have a strong and stable dominance hierarchy. Since grooming is considered a commodity in a biological market (Noe and Hammerstein 1995) that can be exchanged for food , coalitional support (Seyfarth and Cheney 1984) or just for tolerance (Henzi and Barrett 1999), high-ranking females should get more grooming than low-ranking females, and grooming should be positively related to aggressive encounter rates in dyads of females. If the hierarchical system is considerably linear, then grooming among adjacent ranks and reciprocal grooming should occur only in dominant females.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dominance hierarchy and social grooming in female lion- tailed macaques (Macaca silenus) in the Western Ghats, India

2006

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This article reports the structure of dominance and its relationship with social grooming in wild lion-tailed macaque females. The strength of dominance hierarchy was 0.79 on a scale of 0 to 1 indicating a moderate linearity in the ranking system. Dominance scores were converted into an ordinal as well as an interval scale. Grooming scores were also converted into interval scales using standard scores. Grooming received and grooming given correlated positively and negatively respectively with dominance ranks indicating that high ranking females received more and gave less grooming. Grooming was also positively related to encounter rates for dyads of females. More grooming among adjacent ranks, and grooming being more reciprocal, occurred only in the case of dominant females. The grooming patterns, therefore, appeared to be more of despotic than egalitarian nature. While ranking macaques into different Grades of social systems ranging from despotic to egalitarian, Thierry (2004) has placed lion-tailed macaques in Grade 3 corresponding to the 'relaxed' social system. Our results indicate that the grooming and dominance relationships in this species are more despotic, and hence, the Grade for this species requires to be shifted toward 2 or 1.[Singh M, Krishna B A and Singh M 2006 Dominance hierarchy and social grooming in female lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus) in the Western Ghats, India; J. Biosci. 31 [369][370][371][372][373][374][375][376][377]

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The value of grooming to female primates

Cited by 235 publications

References 54 publications

New food provision strategy for a colony of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus): effects on social hierarchy?

New food provision strategy for a colony of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus): effects on social hierarchy?

Group size, grooming and fission in primates: A modeling approach based on group structure

Dominance hierarchy and social grooming in female lion- tailed macaques (Macaca silenus) in the Western Ghats, India

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