Female Assamese macaques bias their affiliation to paternal and maternal kin

Forming strong social bonds can lead to higher reproductive success, increased longevity and/or increased infant survival in several mammal species. Given these adaptive benefits, understanding what determines partner preferences in social bonding is important. Maternal relatedness strongly predicts partner preference across many mammalian taxa. The role of paternal relatedness, however, has received relatively little attention, even though paternal and maternal kin share the same number of genes, and theoretically similar preferences would therefore be expected for paternal kin. Here, we investigate the role of maternal and paternal relatedness in female affiliation in Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis), a species characterized by a relatively low male reproductive skew. We studied a wild population under natural conditions using extensive behavioral data and relatedness analyses based on pedigree reconstruction. We found stronger affiliative relationships and more time spent groomi...

在多种哺乳动物物种中，建立牢固的社会纽带可提升繁殖成功率、延长个体寿命，或提高幼崽存活率。鉴于此类适应性收益，探究社会纽带中伴侣偏好的决定因素具有重要学术价值。在众多哺乳动物类群中，母系亲缘关系可显著预测伴侣偏好；然而，尽管父系亲缘与母系亲缘拥有相同数量的基因，理论上对父系亲属也应存在相似的偏好，但父系亲缘的作用却鲜少受到关注。本研究以雄性繁殖偏倚相对较低的阿萨姆猴（Macaca assamensis）为研究对象，探讨母系与父系亲缘关系对雌性亲和行为的影响。我们针对其自然环境下的野生种群展开研究，通过大量行为学数据及基于谱系重建（pedigree reconstruction）的亲缘关系分析开展相关工作。结果显示，雌性个体间的亲和关系更为紧密，且理毛行为耗时更长……