Duboscq, J., Agil, M., Engelhardt, A., & Thierry, B. (2014). The function of postconflict interactions: new prospects from the study of a tolerant species of primate. Anim. Behav., 87, 107–120.
Abstract: Aggression can generate anxiety, create uncertainty about its aftermath and jeopardise social relationships. Postconflict interactions serve as conflict management strategies to mitigate these consequences. Whereas postconflict interactions are well characterized in many animals, their functions are still insufficiently investigated. Four functional hypotheses have been proposed: stress reduction, relationship repair, self-protection and benign intent. We aimed to test these hypotheses in females of a tolerant macaque species, the crested macaque, Macaca nigra, under natural conditions, for three postconflict interactions: reconciliation, affiliation and aggression with third parties. Our results provide meaningful contrasts compared with findings in other species. We found no evidence that aggression had consequences for individuals' behavioural indicators of anxiety, although it increased the likelihood of secondary aggression with third parties. There was little evidence for the stress reduction hypothesis as the occurrence of any of the three postconflict interactions investigated had little effect on the measured behavioural indicators of anxiety. Conflict and dyad characteristics also had limited influence on anxiety. The relationship repair function was only partly validated: dyads with stronger bonds or that exchanged more support did not reconcile more often, but dyads with attributes related to the symmetry, stability and predictability (i.e. security) within relationships did. Patterns of initiation and directionality of postconflict interactions in this study population suggest that reconciliation may constitute the signalling of appeasement and benign intent. Furthermore, we found that aggression towards third parties may serve as a source of self-protection and reassertion of the females' social status. The distinctive pattern of postconflict management strategies revealed in wild female crested macaques appears to be related to their typically tolerant social style. These results demonstrate the usefulness of concomitantly studying aggression, postconflict interactions and their functions, to understand conflict management strategies comprehensively, while taking into account the level of social tolerance characterizing the studied society.
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Paramastri, Y., Royo, F., Eberova, J., Carlsson, H. - E., Sajuthi, D., Fernstrom, A. - L., et al. (2007). Urinary and fecal immunoglobulin A, cortisol and 11-17 dioxoandrostanes, and serum cortisol in metabolic cage housed female cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Journal of Medical Primatology, 36(6), 355–364.
Abstract: Background and methods Quantitative enzyme-immunoassays of urinary and fecal immunoglobulin A (IgA), cortisol and 11-17-dioxoandrostanes (11,17-DOA), and serum cortisol in eight metabolic-cage-housed female cynomolgus monkeys were performed. The monkeys were divided into two groups, B and NB. Group B animals were blood sampled every 6 hours, whereas Group NB animals were not handled/blood sampled. Results No differences were recorded between the amounts of feces and urine excreted by the two groups. Group B animals excreted more urinary cortisol than did Group NB animals indicating that restraint-blood sampling resulted in a stress response. Excreted amounts of IgA and 11,17-DOA (urine and feces) did not differ between the groups. Conclusions Urinary cortisol was a reliable marker of the stress associated with repeated blood sampling. Declining amounts of excreted urinary cortisol indicated that cynomolgus monkeys acclimated quickly to repeated blood sampling in metabolism cages. Within and between animal variation in amounts of feces voided demonstrated the importance of expressing fecal markers as ‘amounts excreted per time unit per kg body weight’ rather than just measuring the concentrations in fecal samples.
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Neumann, C., Duboscq, J., Dubuc, C., Ginting, A., Irwan, A. M., Agil, M., et al. (2011). Assessing dominance hierarchies: validation and advantages of progressive evaluation with Elo-rating. Animal Behaviour, 82(4), 911–921.
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Sueur, C., & Petit, O. (2008). Organization of Group Members at Departure Is Driven by Social Structure in Macaca. Int. J. Primatol., 29(4), 1085–1098.
Abstract: Abstract Researchers have often explained order of progression of group members during joint movement in terms of the influence of ecological pressures but rarely that of social constraints. We studied the order of joining by group members to a movement in semifree-ranging macaques with contrasting social systems: 1 group of Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and 1 group of rhesus macaques (M. mulatta). We used network metrics to understand roles and associations among individuals. The way the macaques joined a movement reflected the social differences between the species in terms of dominance and kinship. Old and dominant male rhesus macaques were more often at the front of the movement, contrary to the Tonkean macaques, which exhibited no specific order. Moreover, rhesus macaques preferred to join high-ranking or related individuals, whereas Tonkean macaques based associations during joining mostly on sexual relationships with a subgroup of peripheral males.
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Sinha, A. (1998). Knowledge acquired and decisions made: triadic interactions during allogrooming in wild bonnet macaques, Macaca radiata. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 353(1368), 619–631.
Abstract: The pressures of developing and maintaining intricate social relationships may have led to the evolution of enhanced cognitive abilities in many nonhuman primates. Knowledge of the dominance ranks and social relationships of other individuals, in particular, is important in evaluating one's position in the rank hierarchy and affiliative networks. Triadic interactions offer an excellent opportunity to examine whether decisions are taken by individuals on the basis of such knowledge. Allogrooming supplants among wild female bonnet macaques (macaca radiata) usually involved the subordinate female of a grooming dyad retreating at the approach of a female dominant to both members of the dyad. In a few exceptional cases, however, the dominant member of the dyad retreated; simple non-cognitive hypotheses involving dyadic rank differences and agonistic relationships failed to explain this phenomenon. Instead, retreat by the dominant individual was positively correlated with the social attractiveness of her subordinate companion (as measured by the duration of grooming received by the latter from other females in the troop). This suggests that not only does an individual evaluate relationships among other females, but does so on the basis of the amount of grooming received by them. Similarly, the frequency of approaches received by any female was correlated with her social attractiveness when she was the dominant member of the dyad, but not when she was the subordinate. This indicated that approaching females might be aware of the relative dominance ranks of the two allogrooming individuals. In logistic regression analyses, the probability of any individual retreating was found to be influenced more by her knowledge of her rank difference with both the other interactants, rather than by their absolute ranks. Moreover, information about social attractiveness appeared to be used in terms of correlated dominance ranks. The nature of knowledge acquired by bonnet macaque females may thus be egotistical in that other individuals are evaluated relative to oneself, integrative in that information about all other interactants is used simultaneously, and hierarchical in the ability to preferentially use certain categories of knowledge for the storage of related information from other domains.
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