scholarly journals Female monkeys use both the carrot and the stick to promote male participation in intergroup fights

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1843) ◽  
pp. 20161817 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Jean Marie Arseneau-Robar ◽  
Anouk Lisa Taucher ◽  
Eliane Müller ◽  
Carel van Schaik ◽  
Redouan Bshary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Base Line ◽  
Vervet Monkeys ◽  
Male Participation ◽  
Chlorocebus Aethiops ◽  
Social Incentives ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Opposing Group ◽  
Line Level

Group-level cooperation often poses a social dilemma in which joint action may be difficult to achieve. Theoretical models and experimental work on humans show that social incentives, such as punishment of defectors and rewarding of cooperators, can promote cooperation in groups of unrelated individuals. Here, we demonstrate that these processes can operate in a non-human animal species, and be used to effectively promote the production of a public good. We took advantage of the fact that intergroup fights in vervet monkeys ( Chlorocebus aethiops pygerythrus ) are characterized by episodes of intergroup aggression with pauses in-between. During pauses, females selectively groomed males that had participated in the previous aggressive episode, but aggressed male group members that had not. In subsequent (i.e. future) episodes, males who had received either aggression or grooming participated above their personal base-line level. Therefore, female–male aggression and grooming both appear to function as social incentives that effectively promote male participation in intergroup fights. Importantly, females stood to gain much from recruiting males as the probability of winning intergroup fights was dependent on the number of active participants, relative to the number of fighters in the opposing group. Furthermore, females appear to maximize the benefits gained from recruiting males as they primarily used social incentives where and when high-quality food resources, which are the resources primarily limiting to female fitness, were at stake.

scholarly journals Male monkeys use punishment and coercion to de-escalate costly intergroup fights

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1880) ◽  
pp. 20172323 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Jean M. Arseneau-Robar ◽  
Eliane Müller ◽  
Anouk L. Taucher ◽  
Carel P. van Schaik ◽  
Redouan Bshary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wild Population ◽  
Mate Guarding ◽  
Female Group ◽  
Vervet Monkeys ◽  
Intergroup Aggression ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Social Incentives ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Direct Aggression ◽  
Intergroup Encounters

In numerous social species, males direct aggression towards female group members during intergroup fights, and this behaviour is commonly thought to function as mate guarding, even though males often target non-receptive females. In studying intergroup fights in a wild population of vervet monkeys, we found that male intragroup aggression was primarily directed towards individuals who had either just finished exhibiting, or were currently attempting to instigate intergroup aggression. Targeted females were less likely to instigate intergroup aggression in the future, indicating that male intragroup aggression functioned as coercion (when directed towards those who were currently trying to instigate a fight) and punishment (when directed towards those who had recently fought). These manipulative tactics effectively prevented intergroup encounters from escalating into fights and often de-escalated ongoing conflicts. Males who were likely sires were those most likely to use punishment/coercion, particularly when they were wounded, and, therefore, less able to protect vulnerable offspring should a risky intergroup fight erupt. This work, along with our previous finding that females use punishment and rewards to recruit males into participating in intergroup fights, highlights the inherent conflict of interest that exists between the sexes, as well as the role that social incentives can play in resolving this conflict. Furthermore, unlike other studies which have found punishment to be used asymmetrically between partners, these works represent a novel example of reciprocal punishment in a non-human animal.

Effects of hypercapnia and hypoxia on abdominal expiratory nerve activity

1983 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 1614-1622 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Ledlie ◽  
A. I. Pack ◽  
A. P. Fishman
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Ventilation ◽  
Chest Wall ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Intravenous Infusion ◽  
Base Line ◽  
Medial Branch ◽  
Plateau Phase ◽  
Nerve Activity ◽  
Proprioceptive Inputs ◽  
Line Level

We examined the effects of progressive hypercapnia and hypoxia on the efferent neural activity in a whole abdominal expiratory nerve (medial branch of the cranial iliohypogastric nerve (L1) in anesthetized, paralyzed dogs. To eliminate effects of phasic lung and chest-wall movements on expiratory activity, studies were performed in the absence of breathing movements. Progressive hyperoxic hypercapnia and isocapnic hypoxia were produced in the paralyzed animals by allowing 3-5 min of apnea to follow mechanical ventilation with 100% O2 or 35% O2 in N2, respectively; during hypoxia, isocapnia was maintained by intravenous infusion of tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane buffer at a predetermined rate. To quantify abdominal expiratory activity, mean abdominal nerve activity in a nerve burst was computed by integrating the abdominal neurogram and dividing by the duration of the nerve burst. Hypercapnia and hypoxia both increased mean abdominal nerve activity and decreased expiratory duration. In contrast to the ramplike phrenic neurogram, the abdominal neurogram consisted of three phases: an initial rising phase, a plateau phase in which abdominal nerve activity was approximately constant, and a terminal declining phase in which the activity returned to the base-line level. The height of this plateau phase and the rates of rise and decline of abdominal nerve activity all increased with increasing hypercapnia and hypoxia. We conclude that, with proprioceptive inputs constant, both hypercapnia and hypoxia are excitatory to abdominal expiratory neural activity.

A role of anterior cingulate cortex in the emergence of worker–parasite relationship

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (48) ◽  
pp. e2111145118
Author(s):  
Soyoun Ahn ◽  
Yujeong Kang ◽  
Jong Won Lee ◽  
Se Jin Jeong ◽  
Yoo Jin Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Potassium Channel ◽  
Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Messenger Rna ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Parasite Relationship ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Lever Pressing

We studied the brain mechanisms underlying action selection in a social dilemma setting in which individuals’ effortful gains are unfairly distributed among group members. A stable “worker–parasite” relationship developed when three individually operant-conditioned rats were placed together in a Skinner box equipped with response lever and food dispenser on opposite sides. Specifically, one rat, the “worker,” engaged in lever-pressing while the other two “parasitic” rats profited from the worker’s effort by crowding the feeder in anticipation of food. Anatomically, c-Fos expression in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was significantly higher in worker rats than in parasite rats. Functionally, ACC inactivation suppressed the worker’s lever-press behavior drastically under social, but only mildly under individual, settings. Transcriptionally, GABAA receptor– and potassium channel–related messenger RNA expressions were reliably lower in the worker’s, relative to parasite’s, ACC. These findings indicate the requirement of ACC activation for the expression of exploitable, effortful behavior, which could be mediated by molecular pathways involving GABAA receptor/potassium channel proteins.

The effect of housing and environmental enrichment on stereotyped behavior of adult vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops)

Lab Animal ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 218-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Seier ◽  
Charon de Villiers ◽  
Joritha van Heerden ◽  
Ria Laubscher
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Enrichment ◽  
Stereotyped Behavior ◽  
Vervet Monkeys ◽  
Chlorocebus Aethiops

scholarly journals Autosomal recessive congenital cataract in captive-bred vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops)

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zandisiwe E. Magwebu ◽  
Sahar Abdul-Rasool ◽  
Jürgen V. Seier ◽  
Chesa G. Chauke
Keyword(s):  
Autosomal Recessive ◽  
Congenital Cataract ◽  
Vervet Monkeys ◽  
Chlorocebus Aethiops

scholarly journals Contrasts in kinship structure in mammalian societies

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 971-977 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Dyble ◽  
Tim H Clutton-Brock
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Competitive Behavior ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Interspecific Differences ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Relative Rarity ◽  
Kinship Structure ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Comparative studies of mammals confirm Hamilton’s prediction that differences in cooperative and competitive behavior across species will be related to contrasts in kinship between group members. Although theoretical models have explored the factors affecting kinship within social groups, few have analyzed the causes of contrasts in kinship among related species. Here, we describe interspecific differences in average kinship between group members among social mammals and show that a simple mathematical model that includes the number of breeding females, male reproductive skew, and litter size successfully predicts ~95% of observed variation in average kinship between group members across a sample of mammals. Our model shows that a wide range of conditions can generate groups with low average relatedness but only a small and rather specific set of conditions are likely to generate high average levels of relatedness between their members, providing insight into the relative rarity of advanced forms of cooperation in mammalian societies.

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