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Intraspecies variation in dominance style of Macaca fuscata

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Abstract

Knowledge of intraspecific variation is important to test the evolutionary basis of covariation in primate social systems, yet few reports have focused on it, even in the best-studied species of the Macaca genus. We conducted a comparative study of the dominance styles among three provisioned, free-ranging groups of Japanese macaques at Shodoshima Island, Takasakiyama Mountain and Shiga Heights, and collected standard data on aggressive and affiliative behavior during a period of 5 years. Our data in the Takasakiyama and Shiga groups support previous studies showing that Japanese macaques typically have despotic social relations; nevertheless, our data in the Shodoshima group are inconsistent with the norm. The social traits of Shodoshima monkeys suggested that: (1) their dominance style is neither despotic nor tolerant but is intermediate between the two traits; (2) some measures of dominance style, e.g., frequency and duration of social interactions, covary as a set of tolerant traits in Shodoshima monkeys. This study suggests broad intraspecific variation of dominance style in Japanese macaques as can be seen in some other primate species.

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Acknowledgments

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31270442, 31000175, 31130061), Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research, Chinese Ministry of Education (10JZD0006), Cooperation Research Program of Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan (2013B11) and Resona-Asia-Oceania Foundation (2013). We are grateful to the Choshikei Monkey Park, the Takasakiyama Monkey Park and the Jigokudani Monkey Park for granting permission to carry out this research. We thank Dr. E. N. Anderson in the University of California, Riverside for reading and commenting on a draft of this manuscript. We thank all members of the Anthropology Department in Sun Yat-sen University, China, and those of the Social Ecology Department in the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan.

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  1. Anthropology Department, Sun Yat-sen University, Marting Hall, Guang Zhou, 510275, China

    Peng Zhang

  2. Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Japan

    Peng Zhang & Kunio Watanabe

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  1. Peng Zhang
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Correspondence to Peng Zhang.

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Zhang, P., Watanabe, K. Intraspecies variation in dominance style of Macaca fuscata . Primates 55, 69–79 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-013-0370-6

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