Mothers and fathers improve immature baboon foraging success
In: BehaviourSearch for other papers by Emily C. Lynch in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Caley A. Johnson in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Robert F. Lynch in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Jessica M. Rothman in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Anthony Di Fiore in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Ryne A. Palombit in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
For many animal species, immatures are less efficient foragers than their adult counterparts and must use multiple strategies to fulfill their nutritional needs through effective learning of social and feeding behaviour. To overcome these challenges, young animals are predicted to rely on adult relatives to gain foraging competency, partly because kin are more likely to tolerate the proximity of immatures, upon which socially facilitated learning of food selection and foraging skills depends. While evidence suggests that mothers improve the foraging success of their offspring, little is known about the potential contribution of fathers to the development of feeding skills. Here, we investigate the influence of both mothers and fathers on the foraging behaviour of young olive baboons (Papio anubis) in Laikipia, Kenya. Behavioural data were gathered via focal animal sampling and genetic relatedness was determined by microsatellite genotyping of non-invasively collected faecal DNA samples. We also conducted analyses to assess the nutritional and energetic content of staple foods consumed by the baboons. We found that, compared to when feeding near unrelated adults or alone, immatures were more likely to consume high energy foods when they were near their mothers and preliminary results suggest access to similar effects when near fathers. These data advance well-documented maternal influences on the foraging competence of offspring in a matrilocal society, and additionally suggest the importance (and possible long-term fitness benefits) of associations between offspring and their fathers.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Alberts, S.C. (1999). Paternal kin discrimination in wild baboons. — Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 266: 1501-1506.
-
Alberts, S.C., Buchan, J.C. & Altmann, J. (2006). Sexual selection in wild baboons: from mating opportunities to paternity success. — Anim. Beh. 72: 1177-1196.
-
Altmann, J. (1974). Observational study of behavior: sampling methods. — Behaviour 49: 227-265.
-
Altmann, J. & Alberts, S.C. (2005). Growth rates in a wild primate population: ecological influences and maternal effects. — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 57: 490-501.
-
Altmann, S.A. (1991). Diets of yearling female primates (Papio cynocephalus) predict lifetime fitness. — Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88: 420-423.
-
Altmann, S.A. (1998). Foraging for survival: yearling baboons in Africa. — The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
-
Barr, D.J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C. & Tily, H.J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: keep it maximal. — J. Mem. Lang. 68: 255-278.
-
Barrett, L., Gaynor, D. & Henzi, S.P. (2002). A dynamic interaction between aggression and grooming reciprocity among female chacma baboons. — Anim. Behav. 63: 1047-1053.
-
Barton, R.A. (1993). Sociospatial mechanisms of feeding competition in female olive baboons, Papio anubis. — Anim. Behav. 46: 791-802.
-
Barton, R.A. & Whiten, A. (1993). Feeding competition among female olive baboons (Papio anubis). — Anim. Behav. 46: 777-798.
-
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., Walker, S., Christensen, R.H.B., Singmann, H., Dai, B., Grothendieck, G., Green, P., Eigen, C. & Ropp, L. (2015). Package ‘lme4’. — Convergence 12: 1.
-
Belisle, P. & Chapais, B. (2001). Tolerated co-feeding in relation to degree of kinship in Japanese macaques. — Behaviour 138: 487-509.
-
Berghänel, A., Schülke, O. & Ostner, J. (2015). Locomotor play drives motor skill acquisition at the expense of growth: a life history trade-off. — Sci. Adv. 1: e1500451.
-
Bock, J. (1995). The determinants of variation in children’s activities in a southern African community. — Dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.
-
Bock, J. (2002). Learning, life history, and productivity. — Hum. Nat. 13: 161-197.
-
Bock, J. & Johnson, S.E. (2004). Subsistence ecology and play among the Okavango Delta peoples of Botswana. — Hum. Nat. 15: 63-81.
-
Borries, C., Laundhardt, K., Epplen, J.T. & Winkler, P. (1999). Males as infant protectors in Hanuman langurs (Presbytis entellus) living in multimale groups-defense pattern, paternity and sexual behaviour. — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 46: 350-356.
-
Buchan, J.C., Alberts, S.C., Silk, J.B. & Altmann, J. (2003). True paternal care in a multimale primate society. — Nature 425: 179-181.
-
Cheney, D.L. (1977). The acquisition of rank and the development of reciprocal alliances among free-ranging immature baboons. — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 2: 303-318.
-
Christensen, R.H.B. (2015). A tutorial on fitting cumulative link mixed models with clmm2 from the ordinal package. — In: The comprehensive R archive network. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna. Available online at https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ordinal/vignettes/clmm2_tutorial.pdf.
-
Conklin-Brittain, N.L., Knott, C.D. & Wrangham, R.W. (2006). Energy intake by wild chimpanzees and orangutans: methodological considerations and a preliminary comparison. — Cam. Soc. Biol. Evol. Anthropol. 1: 445-472.
-
Danish, L.M. (2013). “Following, ” an alternative mating strategy of male olive baboons (Papio hamadryas anubis). — PhD thesis, Rutgers University, Graduate School, New Brunswick, NJ.
-
Dmitriew, C.M. (2011). The evolution of growth trajectories: what limits growth rate? — Biol. Rev. 86: 97-116.
-
Dobson, A.J. & Barnett, A. (2008). An introduction to generalized linear models. — CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
-
Donati, G., Santini, L., Eppley, T.M., Arrigo-Nelson, S.J., Balestri, M., Boinski, S., Bollen, A., Bridgeman, L.L., Campera, M. & Carrai, V. (2017). Low levels of fruit nitrogen as drivers for the evolution of Madagascar’s primate communities. — Sci. Rep. 7: 14406.
-
Eadie, E.C. (2015). Ontogeny of foraging competence in capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus) for easy versus difficult to acquire fruits: a test of the needing to learn hypothesis. — PLoS ONE 10: e0138001.
-
Estes, R. (1991). The behavior guide to African mammals, Vol. 64. — University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
-
Fairbanks, L. (2002). Immature vervet monkeys: establishing relationship and practicing skills for the future. — In: Immature primates: life history, development, and behavior (Pereira, M.E. & Fairbanks, L.A., eds). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, p. 211-227.
-
Fayet, A.L., Freeman, R., Shoji, A., Padget, O., Perrins, C.M. & Guilford, T. (2015). Lower foraging efficiency in immatures drives spatial segregation with breeding adults in a long-lived pelagic seabird. — Anim. Behav. 110: 79-89.
-
Feldsine, P., Abeyta, C. & Andrews, W.H. (2002). AOAC International Methods Committee guidelines for validation of qualitative and quantitative food microbiological official methods of analysis. — J. AOAC Int. 85: 1187-1200.
-
Fox, J., Weisberg, S., Adler, D., Bates, D., Baud-Bovy, G., Ellison, S., Firth, D., Friendly, M., Gorjanc, G. & Graves, S. (2012). Package ‘car’. — R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna.
-
Galef, B.G. & Laland, K.V. (2005). Social learning in animals: empirical studies and theoretical models. — Biol. Sci. 55: 489-499.
-
Ganzhorn, J.U., Arrigo-Nelson, S.J., Carrai, V., Chalise, M.K., Donati, G., Droescher, I., Eppley, T.M., Irwin, M.T., Koch, F. & Koenig, A. (2017). The importance of protein in leaf selection of folivorous primates. — Am. J. Primatol. 79: 1-13.
-
Gavan, J.A. & Swindler, D.R. (1966). Growth rates and phylogeny in primates. — Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 24: 181-190.
-
Grecian, W.J., Lane, J.V., Michelot, T., Wade, H.M. & Hamer, K.C. (2018). Understanding the ontogeny of foraging behaviour: insights from combining marine predator bio-logging with satellite-derived oceanography in hidden Markov models. — J. Roy. Soc. Interface 15: 20180084.
-
Gunst, N., Boinski, S. & Fragraszy, D.M. (2008). Acquisition of foraging competence in wild brown capuchins (Cebus apella), with special reference to conspecifics’ foraging artefacts as an indirect social influence. — Behaviour 145: 195-229.
-
Gunst, N., Leca, J.B., Boinski, S. & Fragaszy, D. (2010). The ontogeny of handling hard-to-process food in wild brown capuchins (Cebus apella apella): evidence from foraging on the fruit of Maximiliana maripa. — Am. J. Primatol. 72: 960-973.
-
Hamilton, W.D. (1964a). The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I. — J. Theor. 7: 1-16.
-
Hamilton, W.D. (1964b). The genetical evolution of social behavior. II. — J. Theor. 7: 17-52.
-
Harvey, P.H. & Clutton-Brock, T.H. (1985). Life history variation in primates. — Evolution 39: 559-581.
-
Hatch, K.K. & Lefebvre, L. (1997). Does father know best? Social learning from kin and non-kin in juvenile ringdoves. — Behav. Process. 41: 1-10.
-
Heyes, C.M. (1994). Social learning in animals: categories and mechanisms. — Biol. Rev. 69: 207-231.
-
Holekamp, K.E. & Smale, L. (1991). Dominance acquisition during mammalian social development: the “inheritance” of maternal rank. — Am. Zool. 31: 306-317.
-
Huchard, E., Charpentier, M.J., Marshall, H., King, A.J., Knapp, L.A. & Cowlishaw, G. (2012). Paternal effects on access to resources in a promiscuous primate society. — Behav. Ecol. 24: 229-236.
-
Isbell, F., Reich, P.B., Tilman, D., Hobbie, S.E., Polasky, S. & Binder, S. (2013). Nutrient enrichment, biodiversity loss, and consequent declines in ecosystem productivity. — Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 110: 11911-11916.
-
Isbell, L.A., Pruetz, J.D. & Young, T.P. (1998). Movements of adult female vervets (Cercopithecus aethiops) and patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas) as estimators of food resource size, density, and distribution. — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 42: 123-133.
-
Jaeggi, A.V., Dunkel, L.P., Van Noordwijk, M.A., Wich, S.A., Sura, A.A. & Van Schaik, C.P. (2010). Social learning of diet and foraging skills by wild immature Bornean orangutans: implications for culture. — Am. J. Primatol. 72: 62-71.
-
Janson, C. & van Schaik, C.P. (1993). Ecological risk aversion in immature primates: slow and steady wins the race. — In: Immature primates: life history, development, and behavior (Pereira, M.E. & Fairbanks, L.A., eds). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, p. 57-74.
-
Johnson, C.A., Raubenheimer, D., Rothman, J.M., Clarke, D. & Swedell, L. (2013). 30 days in the life: daily nutrient balancing in a wild chacma baboon. — PLoS ONE 8: e70383.
-
Johnson, S.E. & Bock, J. (2004). Trade-offs in skill acquisition and time allocation among immature chacma baboons. — Hum. Nat. 15: 45-62.
-
Kaplan, B.S., O’Riain, M.J., van Eeden, R. & King, A.J. (2011). A low-cost manipulation of food resources reduces spatial overlap between baboons (Papio ursinus) and humans in conflict. — Int. J. Primatol. 32: 1397-1412.
-
Kappeler, P.M. & Pereira, M.E. (2003). Primate life histories and socioecology. — University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
-
Kappeler, P.M., Cremer, S. & Nunn, C.L. (2015). Sociality and health: impacts of sociality on disease susceptibility and transmission in animal and human societies. — Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 370: 20140116.
-
King, A.J., Douglas, C.M., Huchard, E., Isaac, N.J. & Cowlishaw, G. (2008). Dominance and affiliation mediate despotism in a social primate. — Curr. Biol. 18: 1833-1838.
-
King, A.J., Clark, F.E. & Cowlishaw, G. (2011). The dining etiquette of desert baboons: the roles of social bonds, kinship, and dominance in co-feeding networks. — Am. J. Primatol. 73: 768-774.
-
Krebs, J.R. & Davies, N.B. (1997). The evolution of behavioural ecology. — Blackwell Science, Oxford.
-
Lemasson, A., Palombit, R.A. & Jubin, R. (2008). Friendships between males and lactating females in a free-ranging group of olive baboons (Papio hamadryas anubis): evidence from playback experiments. — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 62: 1027-1035.
-
Lonsdorf, E.V. & Ross, S.R. (2012). Socialization and development of behavior. — In: The evolution of primate societies (Mitani, J.C., Call, J., Kappeler, P.M., Palombit, R.A. & Silk, J.B., eds). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, p. 245-268.
-
Lonsdorf, E.V., Pusey, A.E. & Eberly, L. (2004). Sex differences in learning in chimpanzees. — Nature 428: 715-716.
-
Lynch, E.C., Di Fiore, A., Lynch, R.F. & Palombit, R.A. (2017). Fathers enhance social bonds among paternal half-siblings in immature olive baboons (Papio hamadryas anubis). — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 71: 120.
-
Mann, J. & Sargeant, B. (2003). Like mother, like calf: the ontogeny of foraging traditions in wild Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.). — In: The biology of traditions: models and evidence (Fragaszy, D. & Perry, S., eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 236-266.
-
Mann, J., Sargeant, B.L. & Minor, M. (2007). Calf inspections of fish catches in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.): opportunities for oblique social learning? — Mar. Mammal. Sci. 23: 197-202.
-
Marchetti, K. & Price, T. (1989). Differences in the foraging of juvenile and adult birds: the importance of developmental constraints. — Biol. Rev. 64: 51-70.
-
Mendez, L., Prudor, A. & Weimerskirch, H. (2017). Ontogeny of foraging behaviour in juvenile red-footed boobies (Sula sula). — Sci. Rep. 7: 13886.
-
Morin, P.A., Chambers, K.E., Boesch, C. & Vigilant, L. (2001). Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis of DNA from noninvasive samples for accurate microsatellite genotyping of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus). — Mol. Ecol. 10: 1835-1844.
-
Moscovice, L.A., Heesen, M., Di Fiore, A., Seyfarth, R.M. & Cheney, D.L. (2009). Paternity alone does not predict long-term investment in immatures by male baboons. — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 63: 1471-1482.
-
Nguyen, N., Van Horn, R.C., Alberts, S.C. & Altmann, J. (2009). Friendships between new mothers and adult males: adaptive benefits and determinants in wild baboons (Papio cynocephalus). — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 63: 1331-1344.
-
O’Malley, R.C. & Power, M.L. (2012). Nutritional composition of actual and potential insect prey for the Kasekela chimpanzees of Gombe National Park, Tanzania. — Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 149: 493-503.
-
Orgeret, F., Cox, S.L., Weimerskirch, H. & Guinet, C. (2019). Body condition influences ontogeny of foraging behavior in juvenile southern elephant seals. — Ecol. Evol. 9: 223-236.
-
Ottoni, I.E. & Izar, P. (2008). Capuchin monkey tool use: overview and implications. — Evol. Anthropol. 17: 171-178.
-
Packer, C. (1975). Male transfer in olive baboons. — Nature 255: 219.
-
Packer, C. (1979). Inter-troop transfer and inbreeding avoidance in Papio anubis. — Anim. Behav. 27: 1-36.
-
Palombit, R.A. (2013). Papio anubis — olive baboon (Anubis baboon). — In: Mammals of Africa, Vol. II Primates (Butynski, J., Kingdon, T.M. & Kalina, J., eds). Bloomsbury, London, p. 233-239.
-
Palombit, R.A., Seyfarth, R.M. & Cheney, D.L. (1997). The adaptive value of ‘friendships’ to female baboons: experimental and observational evidence. — Anim. Behav. 54: 599-614.
-
Palombit, R.A., Cheney, D.L. & Seyfarth, R.M. (2001). Female–female competition for male ‘friends’ in wild chacma baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus). — Anim. Behav. 61: 1159-1171.
-
Pellegrini, A.D., Dupuis, D. & Smith, P.K. (2007). Play in evolution and development. — Dev. Rev. 27: 261-276.
-
Pereira, M.E. & Altmann, J. (1985). Development of social behavior in free living nonhuman. — In: Nonhuman primate models for human growth and development (Watts, E.S., ed.). Alan R. Liss, New York, NY, p. 217-309.
-
Pereira, M.E. & Fairbanks, L.A. (1993). Immature primates: life history, development and behavior. — University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
-
Pontzer, H., Raichlen, D.A., Gordon, A.D., Schroepfer-Walker, K.K., Hare, B., O’Neill, M.C., Muldoon, K.M., Dunsworth, H.M., Wood, B.M. & Isler, K. (2014). Primate energy expenditure and life history. — Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111: 1433-1437.
-
Pruetz, J.D. (2015). The socioecology of adult female patas and vervets in Kenya. — Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
-
Pruetz, J.D. & Isbell, L.A. (2000). Correlations of food distribution and patch size with agonistic interactions in female vervets (Chlorocebus aethiops) and patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas) living in simple habitats. — Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 49: 38-47.
-
Pusey, A.E. & Packer, C. (1987). Dispersal and philopatry. — In: Primate societies (Smuts, B.B., Cheney, D.L., Seyfarth, R.M., Wrangham, R.W. & Struhsaker, T.T., eds). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, p. 250-266.
-
R-Core Team (2019). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. — R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna.
-
Riotte-Lambert, L. & Weimerskirch, H. (2013). Do naive juvenile seabirds forage differently from adults? — Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 280: 20131434.
-
Ross, C. & Jones, K.E. (1999). Socioecology and the evolution of primate reproductive rates. — In: Comparative primate socioecology (Lee, P.C., ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 73-110.
-
Rothman, J.M., Chapman, C.A. & Pell, A.N. (2008a). Fiber-bound nitrogen in gorilla diets: implications for estimating dietary protein intake of primates. — Am. J. Primatol. 70: 690-694.
-
Rothman, J.M., Dierenfeld, E.S., Hintz, H.F. & Pell, A. (2008b). Nutritional quality of gorilla diets: consequences of age, sex, and season. — Oecologia 155: 111-122.
-
Rothman, J.M., Chapman, C. & van Soest, P. (2012). Methods in primate nutritional ecology: a user’s guide. — Int. J. Primatol. 33: 542-566.
-
Sargeant, B.L. & Mann, J. (2009). Developmental evidence for foraging traditions in wild bottlenose dolphins. — Anim. Behav. 78: 715-721.
-
Schiel, N. & Huber, L. (2006). Social influences on the development of foraging behavior in free-living common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). — Am. J. Primatol. 68: 1150-1160.
-
Schielzeth, H. & Forstmeier, W. (2009). Conclusions beyond support: overconfident estimates in mixed models. — Behav. Ecol. 20: 416-420.
-
Schuppli, C., Forss, S.I., Meulman, E.J., Zweifel, N., Lee, K.C., Rukmana, E., Vogel, E.R., van Noordwijk, M.A. & van Schaik, C.P. (2016a). Development of foraging skills in two orangutan populations: needing to learn or needing to grow? — Front. Zool. 13: 43.
-
Schuppli, C., Graber, S.M., Isler, K. & van Schaik, C.P. (2016b). Life history, cognition and the evolution of complex foraging niches. — J. Hum. Evol. 92: 91-100.
-
Shealer, D.A. (2002). Foraging behavior and food of seabirds. — In: Biology of marine birds (Schreiber, E.A. & Burger, J., eds). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, p. 137-177.
-
Sibly, R.M., Grady, J.M., Venditti, C. & Brown, J.H. (2014). How body mass and lifestyle affect juvenile biomass production in placental mammals. — Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 281: 20132818.
-
Silk, J.B. (2002). Kin selection in primate groups. — Int. J. Primatol. 23: 849-875.
-
Smuts, B.B. (1985). Sex and friendships in baboons. — Aldine, Chicago, IL.
-
Spinka, M., Newberry, R.C. & Bekoff, M. (2001). Mammalian play: training for the unexpected. — Q. Rev. Biol. 76: 141-168.
-
Stearns, S.C. (1989). Trade-offs in life-history evolution. — Funct. Ecol. 3: 259-268.
-
Stephens, D.W. & Krebs, J.R. (1986). Foraging theory. — Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
-
Taberlet, P., Griffin, S., Goossens, B., Questiau, S., Manceau, V., Escaravage, N., Waits, L. & Bouvet, J. (1996). Reliable genotyping of samples with very low DNA quantities using PCR. — Nucleic Acids Res. 24: 3189-3194.
-
van de Waal, E., Claidière, N. & Whiten, A. (2013). Social learning and spread of alternative means of opening an artificial fruit in four groups of vervet monkeys. — Anim. Behav. 85: 71-76.
-
van de Waal, E., Bshary, R. & Whitten, A. (2014). Wild vervet monkey infants acquire the food-processing variants of their mothers. — Anim. Behav. 90: 41-45.
-
Van Horn, R.C., Altmann, J. & Alberts, S.C. (2008). Can’t get there from here: inferring kinship from pairwise genetic relatedness. — Anim. Behav. 75: 1173-1180.
-
van Schaik, C.P. (1983). Why are diurnal primates living in groups? — Behaviour 87: 120-144.
-
van Schaik, C.P. (1989). The ecology of social relationships amongst females. — In: Comparative socioecology: the behavioural ecology of humans and other mammals (Standen, R.A. & Foley, V., eds). Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, p. 195-218.
-
van Soest, P. (1994). Nutritional ecology of the ruminant. — Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
-
van Soest, P., Robertson, J. & Lewis, B. (1991). Methods for dietary fiber, neutral detergent fiber, and nonstarch polysaccharides in relation to animal nutrition. — J. Dairy Sci. 74: 3583-3597.
-
Widdig, A., Nurenber, P., Krawczak, M., Streich, W.J. & Bercovitch, F.B. (2001). Paternal relatedness and age proximity regulate social relationships among adult female rhesus macaques. — Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98: 13769-13773.
-
Wrangham, R.W. (1980). An ecological model of female-bonded primate groups. — Behaviour 75: 262-300.
-
Wunderle, J.M. (1991). Age-specific foraging proficiency in birds. — Curr. Ornithol. 8: 273-324.
-
Young, T.P., Stubblefield, C.H. & Isbell, L.A. (1997). Ants on swollen thorn acacias: species coexistence in a simple system. — Oecologia 109: 98-107.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 785 | 103 | 19 |
| Full Text Views | 3048 | 29 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 1637 | 20 | 0 |
Mothers and fathers improve immature baboon foraging success
In: BehaviourSearch for other papers by Emily C. Lynch in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Caley A. Johnson in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Robert F. Lynch in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Jessica M. Rothman in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Anthony Di Fiore in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Ryne A. Palombit in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
For many animal species, immatures are less efficient foragers than their adult counterparts and must use multiple strategies to fulfill their nutritional needs through effective learning of social and feeding behaviour. To overcome these challenges, young animals are predicted to rely on adult relatives to gain foraging competency, partly because kin are more likely to tolerate the proximity of immatures, upon which socially facilitated learning of food selection and foraging skills depends. While evidence suggests that mothers improve the foraging success of their offspring, little is known about the potential contribution of fathers to the development of feeding skills. Here, we investigate the influence of both mothers and fathers on the foraging behaviour of young olive baboons (Papio anubis) in Laikipia, Kenya. Behavioural data were gathered via focal animal sampling and genetic relatedness was determined by microsatellite genotyping of non-invasively collected faecal DNA samples. We also conducted analyses to assess the nutritional and energetic content of staple foods consumed by the baboons. We found that, compared to when feeding near unrelated adults or alone, immatures were more likely to consume high energy foods when they were near their mothers and preliminary results suggest access to similar effects when near fathers. These data advance well-documented maternal influences on the foraging competence of offspring in a matrilocal society, and additionally suggest the importance (and possible long-term fitness benefits) of associations between offspring and their fathers.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 785 | 103 | 19 |
| Full Text Views | 3048 | 29 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 1637 | 20 | 0 |