Higher social tolerance in wild versus captive common marmosets: the role of interdependence

Francisco Edvaldo De Oliveira Terceiro,Carel P Van Schaik,Judith Maria Burkart,Arrilton Araújo,Maria De Fátima Arruda

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-80632-3

Francisco Edvaldo De Oliveira Terceiro, Carel P Van Schaik + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80632-3

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Abstract

Social tolerance in a group reflects the balance between within-group competition and interdependence: whereas increased competition leads to a reduction in social tolerance, increased interdependence increases it. Captivity reduces both feeding competition and interdependence and can therefore affect social tolerance. In independently breeding primates, social tolerance has been shown to be higher in captivity, indicating a strong effect of food abundance. It is not known, however, how social tolerance in cooperative breeders, with their much higher interdependence, responds to captivity. Here, we therefore compared social tolerance between free-ranging and captive groups in the cooperatively breeding common marmoset and found higher social tolerance (measured as proximity near food, co-feeding, and food sharing) in the wild. Most likely, social tolerance in the wild is higher because interdependence is particularly high in the wild, especially because infant care is more costly there than in captivity. These results indicate that the high social tolerance of these cooperative breeders in captivity is not an artefact, and that captive data may even have underestimated it. They may also imply that the cooperative breeding and foraging of our hominin ancestors, which relied on strong interdependence at multiple levels, was associated with high social tolerance.

Highlights

Social tolerance in a group reflects the balance between within-group competition and interdependence: whereas increased competition leads to a reduction in social tolerance, increased interdependence increases it
The degree of social tolerance in a group reflects the balance between within-group competition over resources, and the need for group members as cooperation partners, generally to cooperate in between-group encounters, or to avoid p redators[2]
In orangutans, active food sharing can be common in c aptivity[8] but is quite rare in the wild[9], and the same pattern has been reported for c himpanzees[10]

Summary

Introduction

Social tolerance in a group reflects the balance between within-group competition and interdependence: whereas increased competition leads to a reduction in social tolerance, increased interdependence increases it. In orangutans, active food sharing can be common in c aptivity[8] but is quite rare in the wild[9], and the same pattern has been reported for c himpanzees[10] These results suggest that in these independently breeding primates, the effect on social tolerance of reduced feeding competition outweighs the effect of reduced interdependence. This finding is intriguing because it can contribute to understanding the evolution of the high levels of social tolerance in humans who engage in cooperative breeding[23,24] This comparative data was all collected in captive populations, which is problematic if different species react differently to captivity, because the balance of within-group competition and interdependence in the wild versus captivity changes differently

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