Abstract
The spatiotemporal cohesion of a group is an essential element of primate society. It is thus important to clarify the factors that influence the extent of variation in spatial cohesion and individual membership in a group over time, known as fission–fusion dynamics. During the mating season of 2019, the alpha male (TY) in a wild group of Japanese macaques on Kinkazan Island repeatedly disappeared from the group, and we observed fission–fusion dynamics caused by his movement. The group seemed to have split when TY left the group or its home range, and females who followed him had the most affiliative relationships with TY or were the relatives of those females. Although TY disappeared from the group in the post-mating season, these fission–fusion dynamics only occurred during the mating season probably because females had a more substantial need for protection against aggression from the other males during the mating season. These results indicate that, although rare, fission–fusion dynamics based on affiliative relationships between males and females can occur with the separation of alpha males from the group. More studies in other populations are needed to clarify the influence of group males on the spatial cohesion of groups.
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22 September 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-022-01023-y
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Acknowledgements
We thank T. Sasaki, M. Miyazaki, M. Sekizawa, and N. Higuchi for assistance during data collection; K. Izawa for providing a research base and support during field research; the Koganeyama Shrine for providing a research base and general support; A. Suzuki for providing information from cases similar to our observations; T. Hino for supporting data analysis using GIS; and N. Nakagawa, members of the Laboratory of Human Evolution Studies, Kyoto University, and two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments to improve this work. This study was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (Grant number 20J23276) and the Cooperation Research Program of the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University for N.K. and T. Y. (2019-B-6 and 2019-B-11).
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The video of the members with TY moving beyond the group’s home range on October 26. (MOV 773920 KB)
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Yamaguchi, T., Kazahari, N. Fission–fusion dynamics in a wild group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) on Kinkazan Island caused by the repeated separation of an alpha male being followed by females. Primates 63, 575–582 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-022-01011-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-022-01011-2