TY - JOUR
T1 - Immature Male Chimpanzees’ (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) Social Relationships with Adult Males, but Not Peers, Persist into Adulthood
AU - Bray, Joel
AU - Murray, Carson M.
AU - Gilby, Ian C.
AU - Stanton, Margaret A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute, Tanzania National Parks, and the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology for research permissions. We thank Jane Goodall and the Gombe Stream Research Center staff for their efforts over six decades to collect these data. We thank Anne Pusey for initiating digitization of the data and construction of the database. We thank the many research assistants at Duke University and the University of Minnesota for data entry. Fieldwork was funded primarily by the Jane Goodall Institute. Additional support came from the National Science Foundation (DBS-9021946, SBR-9319909, BCS-0452315, IOS-LTREB-1052693, IIS-0431141), the National Institutes of Health (R01-AI058715, R00-HD057992, P30-AI27767), Harris Steel Group, the McKnight Foundation, the Windibrow Foundation, the Leakey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the University of Minnesota, and Duke University. JB was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 026257-001.
Funding Information:
We thank the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute, Tanzania National Parks, and the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology for research permissions. We thank Jane Goodall and the Gombe Stream Research Center staff for their efforts over six decades to collect these data. We thank Anne Pusey for initiating digitization of the data and construction of the database. We thank the many research assistants at Duke University and the University of Minnesota for data entry. Fieldwork was funded primarily by the Jane Goodall Institute. Additional support came from the National Science Foundation (DBS-9021946, SBR-9319909, BCS-0452315, IOS-LTREB-1052693, IIS-0431141), the National Institutes of Health (R01-AI058715, R00-HD057992, P30-AI27767), Harris Steel Group, the McKnight Foundation, the Windibrow Foundation, the Leakey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the University of Minnesota, and Duke University. JB was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 026257-001.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Highly differentiated and affiliative social relationships are observed in a variety of mammals, including primates, cetaceans, and social carnivores. Although there has been a transformation in our understanding of the form and function of social bonds in the past two decades, the role of early life social experiences in the development of bonds remains less clear. Few studies have examined whether social relationships during infancy and juvenility (aside from those between mothers and offspring) persist into adulthood. In this study, we used longitudinal data on wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Gombe National Park, Tanzania, to investigate the effects of party-level association during infancy and juvenility (hereafter immaturity) on affiliative relationships among adult males (the philopatric sex). In total, we examined behavioral data from focal follows between 1970 and 2015 (N = 23 adult males). We used maternal associations as proxies for the associations of immature males, and we measured adult male social relationships using party-level associations and grooming activity. We found that immature males that associated with individual adult males at higher rates had stronger relationships with those same adult males later in life. By contrast, rates of association between pairs of immature males did not predict the strength of their dyadic relationships as adults. Overall, these findings emphasize the importance of early socialization in male chimpanzee social development. These results also reinforce studies in mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), suggesting that the persistence of social relationships that do not involve the mother may be more likely to evolve in long-lived species where young adult males face challenges entering an adult hierarchy composed of stronger and/or more socially experienced competitors.
AB - Highly differentiated and affiliative social relationships are observed in a variety of mammals, including primates, cetaceans, and social carnivores. Although there has been a transformation in our understanding of the form and function of social bonds in the past two decades, the role of early life social experiences in the development of bonds remains less clear. Few studies have examined whether social relationships during infancy and juvenility (aside from those between mothers and offspring) persist into adulthood. In this study, we used longitudinal data on wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Gombe National Park, Tanzania, to investigate the effects of party-level association during infancy and juvenility (hereafter immaturity) on affiliative relationships among adult males (the philopatric sex). In total, we examined behavioral data from focal follows between 1970 and 2015 (N = 23 adult males). We used maternal associations as proxies for the associations of immature males, and we measured adult male social relationships using party-level associations and grooming activity. We found that immature males that associated with individual adult males at higher rates had stronger relationships with those same adult males later in life. By contrast, rates of association between pairs of immature males did not predict the strength of their dyadic relationships as adults. Overall, these findings emphasize the importance of early socialization in male chimpanzee social development. These results also reinforce studies in mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), suggesting that the persistence of social relationships that do not involve the mother may be more likely to evolve in long-lived species where young adult males face challenges entering an adult hierarchy composed of stronger and/or more socially experienced competitors.
KW - Association
KW - Grooming
KW - Maternal behavior
KW - Social development
KW - Sociality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85113133790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85113133790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10764-021-00235-1
DO - 10.1007/s10764-021-00235-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85113133790
SN - 0164-0291
VL - 42
SP - 701
EP - 721
JO - International Journal of Primatology
JF - International Journal of Primatology
IS - 5
ER -