Paternal kinship: patterns, mechanisms and cues
Final Report Abstract
In rhesus macaques, yearly male reproduction is consistently skewed towards a few sires, in both small and large groups. We were also able to show a significant skew in male reproduction across lifetime, with fecundity contributing more to lifetime reproductive success than longevity. The most important consequence of male skew is that a considerable proportion of offspring born will be paternal half-siblings, which we find within the same and different groups. While high dominance rank is an important determinant of male reproductive success, alpha rank is not, probably resulting from the fact that males queue for rank rather than fighting. Clearly other factors, e.g., male social bonds with females determine paternity success too. Studying the development of paternal kin bias in rhesus from birth to maturation we found that paternal kin bias is less pronounced than maternal kin bias throughout development, i.e. maternal kin are the most important bonding partners for males and females already at birth. However, males bias their affiliation towards paternal kin over non-kin in comparison to females of the same age. This preference of males seems to be independent of age and present from early on. Moreover, rhesus sires are more likely to affiliate with their own offspring than non-sires are to affiliate with unrelated infants. The preference by fathers peaked around two years of age, the period when infants are most vulnerable. Furthermore, the results of our rhesus studies provide evidence for kin recognition via phenotype matching using acoustic and facial cues and even in the absence of familiarity. In our structural analysis we were not able to demonstrate a correlation between the structural similarity of these cues and relatedness. However, given the evidence at the behavioral level this rather suggests that monkeys use these cues and that our methodological approach was not sensitive enough to reveal the expected correlation. For olfactory cues we found more common substances on the skin of paternal half-sisters than on that of non-related females while yet lacking an appropriate kin test at the behavioral level. Nevertheless, olfaction should be considered as cue for paternal kin discrimination. Our results suggest that multiple cues are used to recognize kin, possibly to compensate the rather weak signal of single cues which might lead to recognition errors. Future studies should explore complementary analysis including behavioral bioassay and structure analysis.
Publications
- (2011): Testing the priority-of-access model in a seasonally breeding primate species. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 65: 1615–1627
Dubuc, C., Muniz, L., Heistermann, M, Engelhardt, A. & Widdig, A.
- (2012): Patterns of interventions and the effect of coalitions and sociality on male fitness. Molecular Ecology 21: 699-714
Kulik, L. Muniz, L., Mundry, R. & Widdig, A.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05250.x) - (2013): Familiarity, kinship and natal dispersal in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). International Journal of Primatology 34: 99-114
Albers, M. & Widdig, A.
- (2013): The impact of male reproductive skew on kin structure and sociality in multi-male groups. Evolutionary Anthropology 22: 239-250
Widdig, A.
- (2013): The impact of male-infant association in a primate with low paternity certainty. Molecular Ecology 22: 3638-3651
Langos, D., Kulik, L., Mundry, R. & Widdig, A.
- (2013): Visual phenotype matching: cues to paternity are present in rhesus macaque faces. PLoS One 8: 2 e55846
Kazem, A.J.N & Widdig, A.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055846) - (2014): Female rhesus macaques discriminate unfamiliar paternal sisters in playback experiments - support for acoustic phenotype matching. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 281: 20131628
Pfefferle, D., Ruiz- Lambides, A. & Widdig, A.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.1628) - (2014): Monkeys spontaneously discriminate their unfamiliar paternal relatives under natural conditions using facial cues. Current Biology 24: 1806–1810
Pfefferle, D., Kazem, A.J.N., Brockhausen, R.R., Ruiz-Lambides, A. & Widdig, A.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.06.058) - (2014): Variance in male lifetime reproductive success and estimation of the degree of polygyny in a primate. Behavioral Ecology 25(4): 878-889
Dubuc, C., Ruiz-Lambides, A. & Widdig, A.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/aru052) - (2015): Sex differences in kin bias at maturation: male rhesus macaques prefer paternal kin prior to natal dispersal. American Journal of Primatology
Widdig, A., Langos, D. & Kulik, L.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22401)
