scholarly journals The season for peace: reconciliation in a despotic species (Lemur catta)

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabetta Palagi ◽  
Ivan Norscia
Keyword(s):  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Lemur Catta ◽  
Female Dominance ◽  
Captive Group ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Right

However despotic a social group may be, managing conflicts of interest is crucial to preserve group living benefits, mainly based on cooperation. In fact, in despotic groups post-conflict management via reconciliation (the first post-conflict reunion between former opponents) can occur, even if at variable levels. In the despotic Lemur catta reconciliation was reported in one out of four captive groups. We used this species as a model to understand what variables influence the occurrence of the reconciliation in despotic groups. We analyzed 2339 PC-MC collected on eight groups (five in the Berenty forest, Madagascar; three hosted at the Pistoia Zoo, Italy). Since Lemur catta is characterized by rigid female dominance but show female-female coalitionary support, we expected to find reconciliation in the wild, other than in captivity. Consistently, we found the phenomenon to be present in one captive group and two wild groups, thus providing the first evidence of the presence of reconciliation in wild Lemur catta. Being this species a seasonal breeder (with mating occurring once a year), we expected that the season more than other variables (wild/captivity setting, rank, or individual features) would influence reconciliation levels. Via GLMM we found that the season was indeed the only variable significantly explaining reconciliation rates, lowest during mating and highest during the pregnancy period. We posit that reconciliation can be present in despotic species but not when the advantages of intra-group cooperation are annihilated by competition, as it occurs in seasonal breeders when reproduction is at stake. By comparing our results with literature, we conclude that in despotic social groups in which coalitions are observed, the right question is not if but when reconciliation can be present.

scholarly journals The season for peace: reconciliation in a despotic species (Lemur catta)

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabetta Palagi ◽  
Ivan Norscia
Keyword(s):  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Lemur Catta ◽  
Female Dominance ◽  
Captive Group ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Right

However despotic a social group may be, managing conflicts of interest is crucial to preserve group living benefits, mainly based on cooperation. In fact, in despotic groups post-conflict management via reconciliation (the first post-conflict reunion between former opponents) can occur, even if at variable levels. In the despotic Lemur catta reconciliation was reported in one out of four captive groups. We used this species as a model to understand what variables influence the occurrence of the reconciliation in despotic groups. We analyzed 2339 PC-MC collected on eight groups (five in the Berenty forest, Madagascar; three hosted at the Pistoia Zoo, Italy). Since Lemur catta is characterized by rigid female dominance but show female-female coalitionary support, we expected to find reconciliation in the wild, other than in captivity. Consistently, we found the phenomenon to be present in one captive group and two wild groups, thus providing the first evidence of the presence of reconciliation in wild Lemur catta. Being this species a seasonal breeder (with mating occurring once a year), we expected that the season more than other variables (wild/captivity setting, rank, or individual features) would influence reconciliation levels. Via GLMM we found that the season was indeed the only variable significantly explaining reconciliation rates, lowest during mating and highest during the pregnancy period. We posit that reconciliation can be present in despotic species but not when the advantages of intra-group cooperation are annihilated by competition, as it occurs in seasonal breeders when reproduction is at stake. By comparing our results with literature, we conclude that in despotic social groups in which coalitions are observed, the right question is not if but when reconciliation can be present.

scholarly journals Parental care in the buffy-tufted-ear marmoset (Callithrix aurita) in wild and captive groups

2000 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. V. SANTOS ◽  
M. M. MARTINS
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Breeding Pair ◽  
Energetic Cost ◽  
Environmental Pressures ◽  
Infant Carrying ◽  
Captive Group ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Wild Group ◽  
Callithrix Aurita

Studies on cooperative care of offspring in callitrichid primates are biased in favor of observations in captivity. In the wild, however, individuals have to deal with environmental pressures, which may influence their social behavior. We compared the individual effort attributed to parental care offered by members of a wild group (couple, plus a subadult helper) and two captive groups (A: couple, plus an subadult helper, B: couple, plus four adult helpers) of the buffy-tufted-ear marmoset, Callithrix aurita, from weeks 1-12 after the infants' birth. The carrier (breeding male and female or helper) and the infant's feeding (food sharing and foraging for food) were recorded. Up to week four, while the wild breeding pair shared infant carrying at similar proportions, the male from captive group A carried 100% of the time. Adult helpers from group B were the main carriers. Carrying behavior extended up to week 12 only in the wild group. Food provisioning to the infant was observed earlier in the groups wild and A, but general proportion of feeding records was lower in the wild than in captivity. Energetic cost of travelling and searching for food may be associated with equal division of carrying behavior by the wild breeding pair. Higher proportions of carrying in the groups wild and B may have delayed the development of the infants' motor skills required in foraging. Our data agree with previous studies: the father's lower investment in carrying when adult helpers are present and lower contribution of subadult non-reproductive members.

scholarly journals Social dominance and cooperation in female vampire bats

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 210266
Author(s):  
Rachel J. Crisp ◽  
Lauren J. N. Brent ◽  
Gerald G. Carter
Keyword(s):  
Dominance Hierarchy ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Experimental System ◽  
Food Sharing ◽  
Competitive Interactions ◽  
Female Dominance ◽  
Cooperative Relationships ◽  
Vampire Bats ◽  
In The Wild

When group-living animals develop individualized social relationships, they often regulate cooperation and conflict through a dominance hierarchy. Female common vampire bats have been an experimental system for studying cooperative relationships, yet surprisingly little is known about female conflict. Here, we recorded the outcomes of 1023 competitive interactions over food provided ad libitum in a captive colony of 33 vampire bats (24 adult females and their young). We found a weakly linear dominance hierarchy using three common metrics (Landau's h ’ measure of linearity, triangle transitivity and directional consistency). However, patterns of female dominance were less structured than in many other group-living mammals. Female social rank was not clearly predicted by body size, age, nor reproductive status, and competitive interactions were not correlated with kinship, grooming nor food sharing. We therefore found no evidence that females groomed or shared food up a hierarchy or that differences in rank explained asymmetries in grooming or food sharing. A possible explanation for such apparently egalitarian relationships among female vampire bats is the scale of competition. Female vampire bats that are frequent roostmates might not often directly compete for food in the wild.

AN EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF THE CONSISTENCY OF COMPETITIVE ABILITY AND AGONISTIC DOMINANCE IN DIFFERENT SOCIAL CONTEXTS IN CAPTIVE BONOBOS

Behaviour ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Van Elsacker ◽  
Hilde Vervaecke ◽  
Han De Vries
Keyword(s):  
Rank Order ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Female Dominance ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
Group Context ◽  
Captive Group ◽  
Dominance Relationships ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Right ◽  
Free Ranging

AbstractBonobos have been described as a relatively egalitarian and female dominant species. The exact nature and quality of their dominance relationships and the existence of female dominance are current topics of dispute. We investigated the consistency across social contexts, the stability in time, and the degree of expression of the competitive feeding ability and agonistic dominance in a captive group of bonobos. First, we examined whether the competitive feeding ranks and agonistic ranks differed in different dyadic contexts, triadic contexts and the whole group context. For some pairs of animals the dominance relationships with respect to competitive feeding altered with different group compositions. The agonistic dominance relationships changed accordingly. The competitive feeding ranks and agonistic ranks in the experiments correlated strongly with each other. The alpha position was occupied by a female, but not all females outranked all males. We suggest that females can profit from each others presence to gain inter-sexual dominance. Second, although the agonistic rank order in the whole group remained the same over at least five years, some dyadic competitive feeding ranks changed over time, resulting in a stronger female intersexual dominance. Third, the degree of expression of the behaviors used to quantify dyadic competitive and agonistic dominance was not high, in line with the popular 'egalitarian' epithet. Notwithstanding its low consistency across contexts, the dominance hierarchy in the whole group has a strong predictive value for other social relationships such as grooming. Given this strong effect of rank on other behaviours and given the strong dependency of rank on social context, the choice of the right party members may be a crucial factor in the fission-fusion processes of free-ranging bonobos.

Reconciliation and third-party affiliation in pair-bond budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus)

Behaviour ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 153 (9-11) ◽  
pp. 1173-1193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuko Ikkatai ◽  
Shigeru Watanabe ◽  
Ei-Ichi Izawa
Keyword(s):  
Stress Reduction ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Female Dominance ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Pair Bonds ◽  
Species Specific

Some group-living animals show conciliatory tendencies towards specific group members after conflicts, referred to as post-conflict affiliation (PC-affiliation). PC-affiliation with a former opponent and a third-party bystander is classified as ‘reconciliation’ and ‘third-party affiliation’, respectively. PC-affiliation is assumed to be mediated by high-quality social relationships between individuals. Recently, studies assessing lifelong monogamous birds, such as corvids, have found PC-affiliation as a case of convergent evolution with regard to primates. Nevertheless, PC-affiliation divergence in birds is still poorly understood. Here, we report that pair-bonds of budgerigars, a lifelong-monogamous small parrot, engage in both reconciliation and third-party affiliation. We also found that males initiated both types of PC-affiliation more often than females. However, during reconciliation, this skewed affiliation pattern was unlikely specific to the PC-context but could also stem from sex differences in basic social-behavioural features (i.e., female dominance over males and males’ primary role in initiating affiliation with females), which are common outside the PC-context. Conversely, the third-party PC-affiliation pattern was significantly different from the basic affiliation pattern: affiliations were initiated more often by combatant winners, by bystander males toward defeated females, and less often by defeated males. These results suggest specific signal and stress reduction functions related to PC-affiliation among budgerigar pair-bonds. The present study supports the view that PC-affiliations, based on high-quality relationships, did not only evolve in mammals but also in birds, with species-specific forms associated with social behavioural tendencies.

scholarly journals On the modulation and maintenance of hibernation in captive dwarf lemurs

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina B. Blanco ◽  
Lydia K. Greene ◽  
Robert Schopler ◽  
Cathy V. Williams ◽  
Danielle Lynch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Restriction ◽  
Metabolic Disorders ◽  
Biological Rhythms ◽  
Food Ingestion ◽  
Ambient Temperatures ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Cheirogaleus Medius ◽  
Save Energy ◽  
Metabolic Strategies

AbstractIn nature, photoperiod signals environmental seasonality and is a strong selective “zeitgeber” that synchronizes biological rhythms. For animals facing seasonal environmental challenges and energetic bottlenecks, daily torpor and hibernation are two metabolic strategies that can save energy. In the wild, the dwarf lemurs of Madagascar are obligate hibernators, hibernating between 3 and 7 months a year. In captivity, however, dwarf lemurs generally express torpor for periods far shorter than the hibernation season in Madagascar. We investigated whether fat-tailed dwarf lemurs (Cheirogaleus medius) housed at the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) could hibernate, by subjecting 8 individuals to husbandry conditions more in accord with those in Madagascar, including alternating photoperiods, low ambient temperatures, and food restriction. All dwarf lemurs displayed daily and multiday torpor bouts, including bouts lasting ~ 11 days. Ambient temperature was the greatest predictor of torpor bout duration, and food ingestion and night length also played a role. Unlike their wild counterparts, who rarely leave their hibernacula and do not feed during hibernation, DLC dwarf lemurs sporadically moved and ate. While demonstrating that captive dwarf lemurs are physiologically capable of hibernation, we argue that facilitating their hibernation serves both husbandry and research goals: first, it enables lemurs to express the biphasic phenotypes (fattening and fat depletion) that are characteristic of their wild conspecifics; second, by “renaturalizing” dwarf lemurs in captivity, they will emerge a better model for understanding both metabolic extremes in primates generally and metabolic disorders in humans specifically.

scholarly journals Previously unknown behavior in parasitic cuckoo females: male-like vocalization during migratory activity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Swetlana G. Meshcheryagina ◽  
Alexey Opaev
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Harmonic Spectrum ◽  
Common Cuckoo ◽  
Neck Extension ◽  
Migratory Activity ◽  
Call Production ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Combined Features ◽  
Female Call

Abstract Background In the last decade, enigmatic male-like cuckoo calls have been reported several times in East Asia. These calls exhibited a combination of vocal traits of both Oriental Cuckoo (Cuculus optatus) and Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) advertising calls, and some authors therefore suggested that the enigmatic calls were produced by either Common × Oriental Cuckoo male hybrids or Common Cuckoo males having a gene mutation. However, the exact identity of calling birds are still unknown. Methods We recorded previously unknown male-like calls from three captive Oriental Cuckoo females, and compared these calls with enigmatic vocalizations recorded in the wild as well as with advertising vocalizations of Common and Oriental Cuckoo males. To achieve this, we measured calls automatically. Besides, we video-recorded captive female emitting male-like calls, and compared these recordings with the YouTube recordings of calling males of both Common and Oriental Cuckoos to get insight into the mechanism of call production. Results The analysis showed that female male-like calls recorded in captivity were similar to enigmatic calls recorded in the wild. Therefore, Oriental Cuckoo females might produce the latter calls. Two features of these female calls appeared to be unusual among birds. First, females produced male-like calls at the time of spring and autumn migratory activity and on migration in the wild. Because of this, functional significance of this call remained puzzling. Secondly, the male-like female call unexpectedly combined features of both closed-mouth (closed beak and simultaneous inflation of the ‘throat sac’) and open-mouth (prominent harmonic spectrum and the maximum neck extension observed at the beginning of a sound) vocal behaviors. Conclusions The Cuculus vocalizations outside the reproductive season remain poorly understood. Here, we found for the first time that Oriental Cuckoo females can produce male-like calls in that time. Because of its rarity, this call might be an atavism. Indeed, female male-like vocalizations are still known in non-parasitic tropical and apparently more basal cuckoos only. Therefore, our findings may shed light on the evolution of vocal communication in avian brood parasites.

scholarly journals Reintroduction of the Golden Conure (Guaruba guarouba) in Northern Brazil: Establishing a Population in a Protected Area

Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 198
Author(s):  
Marcelo Rodrigues Vilarta ◽  
William Wittkoff ◽  
Crisomar Lobato ◽  
Rubens de Aquino Oliveira ◽  
Nívia Gláucia Pinto Pereira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Power Lines ◽  
Food Supplementation ◽  
Territorial Disputes ◽  
Amazon Forest ◽  
Nest Boxes ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
Viable Population ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Northern Brazil ◽  
Native Foods

Brazil has the highest number of parrots in the world and the greatest number of threatened species. The Golden Conure is endemic to the Brazilian Amazon forest and it is currently considered as threatened by extinction, although it is fairly common in captivity. Here we report the first reintroduction of this species. The birds were released in an urban park in Belem, capital of Para State, where the species was extinct more than a century ago. Birds were trained to recognize and consume local food and to avoid predators. After the soft-release, with food supplementation and using nest boxes, we recorded breeding activity in the wild. The main challenges before the release were the territorial disputes within the aviary and the predation by boa snakes. During the post-release monitoring the difficulties were the fast dispersion of some individuals and the dangers posed by anthropic elements such as power lines that caused some fatalities. Released birds were very successful at finding and consuming native foods, evading predators, and one pair reproduced successfully. Monitoring continues and further releases are programmed to establish an ecologically viable population.

scholarly journals Numerical assessment in the wild: insights from social carnivores

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1740) ◽  
pp. 20160508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Benson-Amram ◽  
Geoff Gilfillan ◽  
Karen McComb
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Playback Experiments ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Numerical Assessment ◽  
Individual Discrimination ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
Assessment Skills ◽  
In The Wild

Playback experiments have proved to be a useful tool to investigate the extent to which wild animals understand numerical concepts and the factors that play into their decisions to respond to different numbers of vocalizing conspecifics. In particular, playback experiments have broadened our understanding of the cognitive abilities of historically understudied species that are challenging to test in the traditional laboratory, such as members of the Order Carnivora. Additionally, playback experiments allow us to assess the importance of numerical information versus other ecologically important variables when animals are making adaptive decisions in their natural habitats. Here, we begin by reviewing what we know about quantity discrimination in carnivores from studies conducted in captivity. We then review a series of playback experiments conducted with wild social carnivores, including African lions, spotted hyenas and wolves, which demonstrate that these animals can assess the number of conspecifics calling and respond based on numerical advantage. We discuss how the wild studies complement those conducted in captivity and allow us to gain insights into why wild animals may not always respond based solely on differences in quantity. We then consider the key roles that individual discrimination and cross-modal recognition play in the ability of animals to assess the number of conspecifics vocalizing nearby. Finally, we explore new directions for future research in this area, highlighting in particular the need for further work on the cognitive basis of numerical assessment skills and experimental paradigms that can be effective in both captive and wild settings. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The origins of numerical abilities’.

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