Author: Allison LaJoie HeagertyPublisher:
ISBN: 9781321608854
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Many social primates live in cohesive groups with stable affiliative and agonistic relationships. Although there are species typical patterns of social behavior, there is also individual variation within every species. Sources of individual variation in social behavior include aspects of the physical environment (e.g. availability and distribution of resources and population density), factors of the social environment (e.g. dominance rank and kinship ties), and psychobiological and biological factors (e.g. personality and sex). Understanding the sources of individual variation can inform our understanding of how relationships form as well as variation in larger group dynamics. In the following three chapters I explore the sources of individual variation in affiliative relationships in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Grooming is an ideal behavior for this task because it is an integral part of the life of social nonhuman primates and species of many other taxa. I begin by looking broadly at grooming patterns in captive and free-ranging social groups, and examine how captive conditions may affect grooming relationships based on age and sex of the initiator and recipient. Results show that adult females, subadult males, and juveniles allocate grooming differently in the wild than in captivity. Adult females and subadult males in captivity have stronger grooming relationships with one another, and weaker grooming relationships with juveniles, than their wild counterparts. In the second chapter I focus on how personality, sex, dominance rank, and prior familiarity shape grooming relationships in captive groups. Prior familiarity is the primary determinant of grooming relationships between individuals, followed by sex, rank, and personality of the grooming initiator. In the final chapter I examine personality variation under different social environments, and show that changes in dominance rank and early experience with high rank predict changes in the expression of boldness, sociability, and impulsivity.
