Disparate social structures are underpinned by distinct social rules across a primate radiation
Abstract
Over six decades of research on wild baboons and their close relatives (collectively, the African papionins) have uncovered substantial variation in their behavior and social systems. While most papionins form discrete social groups (single-level societies), a few others form small social units that are nested within larger supergroups (multi-level societies). These two systems are generally thought to be qualitatively distinct, but data from wild populations increasingly suggest that there may be areas of overlap. To quantify this potential gradient in social structure, a more systematic, comparative analysis is needed. Here, we constructed a database of behavioral and demographic records spanning 135 group-years, 28 social groups, 13 long-term field studies, and 11 species to quantify variation in grooming network structure and identify the individual and dyadic properties (e.g., kinship and social status effects) that underlie this variation. Consistent with accumulating field observations, the single-level species could be divided into two categories: cohesive and cliquish . Cohesive single-level networks were dense, kin-biased, and moderately rank-structured, while cliquish single-level networks were more differentiated, slightly more kin-biased, and strongly rank-structured. As expected, multi-level networks were very modular and shaped by females’ ties to specific dominant males but varied in their kin biases. Taken together, these data suggest that in the African papionins i) kin and rank biases are widespread but vary in their strength; ii) male-centered subgroups are exclusive to multi-level systems; and iii) increases in network modularity can emerge in response to heightened nepotism and male-centered clustering.
Article Details
Journal Info
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
Authors (36)
Jacob A. Feder
Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University
Susan C. Alberts
Department of Biology, Duke University
Elizabeth A. Archie
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame
Małgorzata E. Arlet
Institute of Human Biology and Evolution, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Alice Baniel
Institut Des Sciences de L’Evolution de Montpellier UMR5554, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de Recherche pour le développement, Université de Montpellier
Jacinta C. Beehner
Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
Thore J. Bergman
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan
Alecia J. Carter
Department of Anthropology, University College London
Marie J. E. Charpentier
Institut Des Sciences de L’Evolution de Montpellier UMR5554, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de Recherche pour le développement, Université de Montpellier
Kenneth L. Chiou
Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Catherine Crockford
Guy Cowlishaw
Gobabeb Namib Research Institute
Federica Dal Pesco
Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center
David Fernández
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary
Julia Fischer
Institut für Anorganische und Analytische Chemie and Freiburg Materials Research Center FMF, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Albertstr. 21, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
James P. Higham
Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Elise Huchard
Anthropologie Evolutive, Institut des Sciences de L’Evolution de Montpellier, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
Auriane Le Floch
The Ape Social Mind Laboratory, Institut des Sciences Cognitives, UMR5229 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Université de Lyon 1
Julia Lehmann
School of Human and Life Sciences, University of Roehampton
Amy Lu
Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University
Gráinne M. McCabe
Wilder Institute
Alexander Mielke
Liza R. Moscovice
Psychophysiology Working Group, Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology
Benjamin Mubemba
Department of Wildlife Sciences, School of Natural Resources, Copperbelt University
Megan Petersdorf
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
Caroline Ross
School of Human and Life Sciences, University of Roehampton
India A. Schneider-Crease
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University
Robert M. Seyfarth
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Noah Snyder-Mackler
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Larissa Swedell
Department of Anthropology, Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of New York
Franziska Trede
Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center
Jenny Tung
Department of Biology, Duke University
Anna H. Weyher
Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Roman M. Wittig
Jason M. Kamilar
Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Joan B. Silk
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University