Here, we report a case in which a captive immigrant female chimpanzee rapidly adopts a local female-specific tradition upon integrating into her new group. For humans, it has even been shown that behavioural copying occurs unconsciously, with the underlying motivation assumed to be avoiding ostracism by increasing favourability (Lakin et al., 2008). Homophily in the form of preferred associations and interactions with conspecifics similar in phenotype has been shown in a variety of species (e.g., zebras (Sundaresan et al., 2007) dolphins (Lusseau & Newman, 2004) meerkats (Madden et al., 2011) chimpanzees (Massen & Koski, 2014)). The matching of behaviour has been interpreted in terms of homophily: the principle that ‘similarity breeds connection’ (McPherson et al., 2001). This logic plausibly holds for tangible manipulations of the environment (e.g., what plants to eat, what material to use for extractive foraging or nest building), but what about social conventions of which the function is opaque or even non-existent apart from the fact that everybody’s doing it, like the finger-in-mouth games in capuchin monkeys or the grass-in-ear behaviour in chimpanzees (Perry et al., 2003 McGrew, 2004 van Leeuwen et al., 2014)? Instead of sampling the local contingencies with risky and time-consuming trial-and-error learning, an individual may simply attend to the behaviour of residents and adopt their choices accordingly (Hoppitt & Laland, 2013). Social learning can be an efficient means to obtain such locally adaptive behaviour (Galef, 1995 Laland, 2004). One of the challenges for migrating females lies in acquiring knowledge of the local social dynamics (e.g., who is the dominant individual and which individuals might be positively inclined toward social interactions?). In captivity, chimpanzee introductions are particularly difficult, stressful, and even dangerous for the individuals involved (Brent et al., 1997). Such transitions are typically accompanied by social tension induced by the unpredictability of the resident chimpanzees, and it has been suggested that the migrating females may employ different strategies to cope with this tension (Luncz & Boesch, 2014). The other immigrant female never adopted the crossed-arm walk, highlighting the variation in behaviour by immigrants upon integration, as well as the potential associated consequences: in a separate observation period 2 years later, the female who copied the local tradition appeared more socially integrated than the other immigrant female.Ĭhimpanzees are a patrilocal species in which the females migrate to neighbouring communities upon becoming sexually mature (Goodall, 1986 Nishida et al., 1999). She copied the behaviour after meeting only one resident female, and showed the behaviour frequently throughout a 6-month observation period following the introduction. During the integration of two chimpanzee females at Royal Burgers’ Zoo (Arnhem, The Netherlands) one of the immigrant females rapidly copied a local tradition - the crossed-arm walk - which has been present in the group for over 20 years. To mitigate the risk of rejection in the new community, immigrants may employ several behavioural strategies. Wild female chimpanzees typically migrate to a neighbouring community at the onset of sexual maturity, a process that can be dangerous and unpredictable.
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