Social structure as a strategy to mitigate the costs of group living: a comparison of gelada and guereza monkeys

Animal Behaviour
R I M Dunbar

Abstract

In mammals, and especially primates, group size and social complexity are typically correlated. However, we have no general explanation why this is so. I suggest that the answer may lie in one of the costs of group living: mammalian reproductive endocrinology is extremely sensitive to stress, and forms one of the hidden costs of living in groups. Fertility declines with group size widely across the social mammals, including primates, and will ultimately place a constraint on group size. However, some species seem to have been able to mitigate this cost by forming bonded relationships that reduce the impact of experienced aggression, even if rates of aggression remain high. The downside is that they reduce network connectivity and hence risk fragmenting the group by providing fracture lines for group fission. To explore this, I compare network indices and fertility patterns across the same range of group sizes for two species of Old World monkeys, Colobus guereza and Theropithecus gelada: the former relatively unsocial, the latter intensely social with frequent use of grooming-based alliances. Compared to those of the guereza, gelada social networks lose density more slowly, maintain connectedness more effectively and are less l...Continue Reading

Citations

Jan 4, 2019·American Journal of Primatology·Robin I M DunbarGuy Cowlishaw
Apr 25, 2019·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Juulia T SuvilehtoRyo Kitada
Sep 15, 2020·Proceedings. Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences·R I M Dunbar
Apr 2, 2019·Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology·Palmyre H BoucherieThomas Bugnyar
May 5, 2021·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Robin I M Dunbar, Susanne Shultz

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Software Mentioned

Gelada
guereza
UciNET

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