Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T03:11:10.005Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Adoption in the Taï chimpanzees: costs, benefits and strong social relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2019

Christophe Boesch
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Roman Wittig
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Catherine Crockford
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Linda Vigilant
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Tobias Deschner
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Fabian Leendertz
Affiliation:
Robert Koch-Institut, Germany
Get access

Summary

In a competitive environment, helping others at a cost presents a puzzle. Nonetheless, altruistic behaviour has been associated with human success as a species. Adoption, the provision of alloparental care to an orphan by an individual other than the biological mother, is a potential altruistic act in both humans and chimpanzees. We investigated potential benefits of adoption (like kin selection, improved reputation, or recruitment of allies) in a chimpanzee community with high adoption rates and alloparental care by adult males, who typically provide no paternal care to offspring. The probability of an adult male providing care to an orphan was connected to the grooming relationship/bond between male and mother before her passing and was not influenced by orphan sex or relatedness. The probability of positively interacting with orphans was negatively affected by the number of female bystanders. Results suggest that male–orphan interactions are not solely driven by reputation, ally recruitment, or kin selection and highlight the link between highly prosocial behaviours and social closeness.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest
40 Years of Research
, pp. 141 - 158
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Altmann, J. (1974). Observational study of behavior: Sampling methods. Behaviour, 49, 227266. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853974X00534CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baayen, R. H. (2008). Analyzing Linguistic Data: A Practical Introduction to Statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C. & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68, 255278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2012.11.001CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. (2012). lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version, 1(7), 123.Google Scholar
Batson, C. D. (1987). Prosocial motivation: Is it ever truly altruistic? In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (pp. 65122). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Boesch, C. (1994). Cooperative hunting in wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 48, 653667. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1994.1285CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch-Achermann, H. (2000). The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest: Behavioural Ecology and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boesch, C., Bolé, C., Eckhardt, N. & Boesch, H. (2010). Altruism in forest chimpanzees: The case of adoption. PLoS ONE, 5(1), e8901. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008901CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boesch, C., Crockford, C., Herbinger, I., Wittig, R., Moebius, Y. & Normand, E. (2008). Intergroup conflicts among chimpanzees in Taï National Park: Lethal violence and the female perspective. American Journal of Primatology, 70, 519532. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20524Google Scholar
Boesch, C., Kohou, G., Néné, H. & Vigilant, L. (2006). Male competition and paternity in wild chimpanzees of the Taï forest. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 130, 103115. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20341Google Scholar
Burkart, J. M., Allon, O., Amici, F., Fichtel, C., Finkenwirth, C., Heschl, A., et al. (2014). The evolutionary origin of human hyper-cooperation. Nature Communications, 5, 4747. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5747CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crockford, C., Wittig, R. M., Langergraber, K., Ziegler, T. E., Zuberbühler, K. & Deschner, T. (2013). Urinary oxytocin and social bonding in related and unrelated wild chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 280(1755), 20122765. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2765CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Waal, F. B. M. (2008). Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 279300. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093625Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N. & Fabes, R. A. (1990). Empathy: Conceptualization, measurement, and relation to prosocial behavior. Motivation and Emotion, 14, 131149. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00991640CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2003). The nature of human altruism. Nature, 425(6960), 785791. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02043CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foerster, S., Franz, M., Murray, C. M., Gilby, I. C., Feldblum, J. T., Walker, K. K., et al. (2016). Chimpanzee females queue but males compete for social status. Scientific Reports, 6, 111. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep35404Google Scholar
Forstmeier, W. & Schielzeth, H. (2010). Cryptic multiple hypotheses testing in linear models: Overestimated effect sizes and the winner’s curse. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 65, 4755. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010–1038–5CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, J. & Weisberg, S. (2010). An R Companion to Applied Regression. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Goodall, J. (1986). The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 152. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022–5193(64)90039–6Google Scholar
Hardy, S.B. (2007). Evolutionary context of human development: The cooperative breeding model – Oxford scholarship. In Salmon, C. A. & Shackelford, T. K. (eds.), Family Relationships: An Evolutionary Perspective (pp. 3968). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobaiter, C., Schel, A. M., Langergraber, K. & Zuberbühler, K. (2014). ‘Adoption’ by maternal siblings in wild chimpanzees. PLoS ONE, 9(8), e103777. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103777CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, H. S., Hill, K., Lancaster, J. & Hurtado, A. M. (2000). A theory of human life history evolution: Diet, intelligence, and longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology, 9, 156185. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520–6505Google Scholar
Kulik, L. (2015). Development and consequences of social behavior in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). PhD thesis, University of Leipzig.Google Scholar
Kurzban, R., Burton-Chellew, M. N. & West, S. A. (2015). The evolution of altruism in humans. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 575599. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych–010814–015355CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Langergraber, K. E., Mitani, J. C. & Vigilant, L. (2007). The limited impact of kinship on cooperation in wild chimpanzees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 77867790. https://doi.org/10.1073/Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.0611449104CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Langergraber, K. E., Mitani, J. C. & Vigilant, L. (2009). Kinship and social bonds in female chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). American Journal of Primatology, 71, 840851. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20711Google Scholar
Langergraber, K. E., Mitani, J. C., Watts, D. P. & Vigilant, L. (2013). Male–female socio-spatial relationships and reproduction in wild chimpanzees. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 67, 861873. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013–1509–6Google Scholar
Langergraber, K. E., Watts, D. P., Vigilant, L. & Mitani, J. C. (2017). Group augmentation, collective action, and territorial boundary patrols by male chimpanzees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114, 73377342. https://doi.org/10.1073/Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.1701582114Google Scholar
Lehmann, J., Fickenscher, G. & Boesch, C. (2006). Kin biased investment in wild chimpanzees. Behaviour, 143, 931955. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853906778623635Google Scholar
Mielke, A., Preis, A., Samuni, L., Gogarten, J. F., Wittig, R. M. & Crockford, C. (2018). Flexible decision-making in grooming partner choice in sooty mangabeys and chimpanzees. Royal Society Open Science, 5, 172143.Google Scholar
Mielke, A., Samuni, L., Preis, A., Gogarten, J. F., Crockford, C. & Wittig, R. M. (2017). Bystanders intervene to impede grooming in Western chimpanzees and sooty mangabeys. Royal Society Open Science, 4(11), 171296. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171296Google Scholar
Mitani, J. C. (2009). Male chimpanzees form enduring and equitable social bonds. Animal Behaviour, 77, 633640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.11.021Google Scholar
Mitani, J. C. & Watts, D. P. (2005). Correlates of territorial boundary patrol behaviour in wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 70, 10791086. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.02.012Google Scholar
Moscovice, L. R., Di Fiore, A., Crockford, C., Kitchen, D. M., Wittig, R. M., Seyfarth, R. M., et al. (2010). Hedging their bets? Male and female chacma baboons form friendships based on likelihood of paternity. Animal Behaviour, 79, 10071015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.01.013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, C. M., Stanton, M. A., Lonsdorf, E. V., Wroblewski, E. E. & Pusey, A. E. (2016). Chimpanzee fathers bias their behaviour towards their offspring. Royal Society Open Science, 3(11), 160441. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160441Google Scholar
Neumann, C., Duboscq, J., Dubuc, C., Ginting, A., Irwan, A. M., Agil, M., et al. (2011). Assessing dominance hierarchies: Validation and advantages of progressive evaluation with Elo-rating. Animal Behaviour, 82, 911921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.07.016Google Scholar
Nguyen, N., Horn, R. C. V., Alberts, S. C. & Altmann, J. (2009). “Friendships” between new mothers and adult males: Adaptive benefits and determinants in wild baboons (Papio cynocephalus). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 63, 13311344. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-009–0786–6Google Scholar
Quinn, G. P. & Keough, M. J. (2002). Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Biologists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. (2016). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna:R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Riedman, M. L. (1982). The evolution of alloparental care and adoption in mammals and birds. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 57, 405435.Google Scholar
Samuni, L., Preis, A., Deschner, T., Crockford, C. & Wittig, R. M. (2018a). Reward of labor coordination and hunting success in wild chimpanzees. Communications Biology, 1, 138. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018–0142–3Google Scholar
Samuni, L., Preis, A., Mielke, A., Deschner, T., Wittig, R. M. & Crockford, C. (2018b). Social bonds facilitate cooperative resource sharing in wild chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 285(1888), 20181643. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1643Google Scholar
Samuni, L., Preis, A., Mundry, R., Deschner, T., Crockford, C. & Wittig, R. M. (2017). Oxytocin reactivity during intergroup conflict in wild chimpanzees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114, 268273. https://doi.org/10.1073/Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.1616812114Google Scholar
Schielzeth, H. (2010). Simple means to improve the interpretability of regression coefficients. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 1, 103113. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2010.00012.xGoogle Scholar
Schielzeth, H. & Forstmeier, W. (2009). Conclusions beyond support: Overconfident estimates in mixed models. Behavioral Ecology, 20, 416420. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arn145Google Scholar
Schülke, O., Bhagavatula, J., Vigilant, L. & Ostner, J. (2010). Social bonds enhance reproductive success in male macaques. Current Biology, 20, 22072210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.10.058CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silk, J. B. (1987). Adoption and fosterage in human societies: Adaptations or enigmas? Cultural Anthropology, 2, 3949. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.1987.2.1.02a00050Google Scholar
Silk, J. B. (1990). Human adoption in evolutionary perspective. Human Nature, 1, 2552. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692145Google Scholar
Silk, J. B. (2007). Social components of fitness in primate groups. Science, 317(5843), 13471351. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1140734Google Scholar
Silk, J. B., Alberts, S. C. & Altmann, J. (2003). Social bonds of female baboons enhance infant survival. Science, 302(5648), 12311234. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1088580Google Scholar
Silk, J. B. & House, B. R. (2016). The evolution of altruistic social preferences in human groups. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 371(1687), 20150097. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0097Google Scholar
Surbeck, M., Boesch, C., Girard-Buttoz, C., Crockford, C., Hohmann, G. & Wittig, R. M. (2017). Comparison of male conflict behavior in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus), with specific regard to coalition and post-conflict behavior. American Journal of Primatology, 79(6). https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22641Google Scholar
Tennie, C., Jensen, K. & Call, J. (2016). The nature of prosociality in chimpanzees. Nature Communications, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13915Google Scholar
Thierry, B. & Anderson, J. R. (1986). Adoption in anthropoid primates. International Journal of Primatology, 7, 191216. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692318Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 3557. https://doi.org/10.2307/2822435Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In Campbell, B. (ed.), Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man (pp. 136179). Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Uehara, S. & Nyundo, R. (1983). One observed case of temporary adoption of an infant by unrelated nulliparous females among wild chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania. Primates, 24, 456466. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02381679Google Scholar
Watts, D. P. (1998). Coalitionary mate guarding by male chimpanzees at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 44, 4355. https://doi.org/10.1007/s002650050513Google Scholar
Watts, D. P. & Mitani, J. C. (2002). Hunting behavior of chimpanzees at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda. International Journal of Primatology, 23, 128. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013270606320Google Scholar
Wilson, M. L., Boesch, C., Fruth, B., Furuichi, T., Gilby, I. C., Hashimoto, C., et al. (2014). Lethal aggression in Pan is better explained by adaptive strategies than human impacts. Nature, 513(7518), 414417. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13727Google Scholar
Wittig, R. M. & Boesch, C. (2003). Food competition and linear dominance hierarchy among female chimpanzees of the Taï National Park. International Journal of Primatology, 24, 847867. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024632923180Google Scholar
Wittig, R. M., Crockford, C., Langergraber, K. & Zuberbühler, K. (2014). Triadic social interactions operate across time: A field experiment with wild chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 281(1779), 20133155. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.3155Google Scholar
Wroblewski, E. E. (2008). An unusual incident of adoption in a wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) population at Gombe National Park. American Journal of Primatology, 70, 995998. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20582Google Scholar
Wroblewski, E. E., Murray, C. M., Keele, B. F., Schumacher-Stankey, J. C., Hahn, B. H. & Pusey, A. E. (2009). Male dominance rank and reproductive success in chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii. Animal Behaviour, 77, 873885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.12.014Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×