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Seasonal Effects on Reconciliation in Macaca fuscata yakui

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Dietary composition may have profound effects on the activity budgets, level of food competition, and social behavior of a species. Similarly, in seasonally breeding species, the mating season is a period in which competition for mating partners increases, affecting amicable social interactions among group members. We analyzed the importance of the mating season and of seasonal variations in dietary composition and food competition on reconciliation in wild female Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata yakui) on Yakushima Island, Japan. Yakushima macaques are appropriate subjects because they are seasonal breeders and their dietary composition significantly changes among the seasons. Though large differences occurred between the summer months and the winter and early spring months in activity budgets and the consumption of the main food sources, i.e., fruits, seeds, and leaves, the level of food competition and conciliatory tendency remained unaffected. Conversely, conciliatory tendency is significantly lower during the mating season than in the nonmating season. Moreover, conciliatory tendency is lower when 1 or both female opponents is in estrous than when they are not. Thus the mating season has profound effects on reconciliation, whereas seasonal changes in activity budgets and dietary composition do not. The detrimental effects of the mating season on female social relationships and reconciliation may be due to the importance of female competition for access to male partners in multimale, multifemale societies.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Yakushima District Forestry Office gave us permission to carry on the study. We thank Drs. S. Suzuki and D.S. Hill, and all the students at the Kyoto University Yakushima Station for their help during the course of the study. We thank the organizers of the IPS 2004 symposium on conflict management and, in particular, Elisabetta Palagi. We thank 2 anonymous referees for useful comments on the manuscript. A Liverpool John Moores University studentship funded Bonaventura Majolo.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, LN6 7TS, UK

    Bonaventura Majolo

  2. Byrom St., Liverpool, L3 3AF, UK

    Nicola Koyama

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  1. Bonaventura Majolo
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  2. Nicola Koyama
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Correspondence to Bonaventura Majolo.

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Majolo, B., Koyama, N. Seasonal Effects on Reconciliation in Macaca fuscata yakui . Int J Primatol 27, 1383–1397 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-006-9079-3

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