Consequences of group fission for the patterns of relatedness among rhesus macaques

Item Type:	Article
Title:	Consequences of group fission for the patterns of relatedness among rhesus macaques
Creators Name:	Widdig, A. and Nuernberg, P. and Bercovitch, F.B. and Trefilov, A. and Berard, J.B. and Kessler, M.J. and Schmidtke, J. and Streich, W.J. and Krawczak, M.
Abstract:	When mammalian social groups exceed their optimal size, they often tend to split. In view of the potential evolutionary benefits, it should be more advantageous for animals to stay with kin, rather than nonkin, during such fission events. In the present study, the spontaneous fission of two social groups, R and S, of rhesus macaques living on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico, provided the opportunity to compare the kinship structure of the corresponding parent and daughter groups, using information on both maternal and paternal relatedness. In both instances, maternal half-siblings and pairs of animals from the same family were significantly more prevalent in the fission products than in the parent group. During the split of group R, significantly more paternal half-siblings stayed in the remnants of the parent group than joined the seceding group. Our findings are compatible with previous behavioural studies demonstrating that female primates bias their social behaviour more to maternal than to paternal kin, but that both types of half-siblings prefer each other more than unrelated animals. It remains to be clarified by future research, however, whether the observed co-segregation of paternal half-sibs in our study reflects active choice or is a by-product of the group-specific kin structures, prior to fission.
Keywords:	Group fission, Kinship, Macaca mulatta, Paternity, Animals, Rhesus macaques
Source:	Molecular Ecology
ISSN:	0962-1083
Publisher:	Blackwell Publishing
Volume:	15
Number:	12
Page Range:	3825-3832
Date:	October 2006
Official Publication:	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2006.03039.x
PubMed:	View item in PubMed

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