Journal
BEHAVIOUR
Volume 151, Issue 7, Pages 935-961Publisher
BRILL ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DOI: 10.1163/1568539X-00003130
Keywords
male affiliation; reproductive period; breeding seasonality; Lemur catta
Categories
Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Primate Conservation Inc.
- National Science Foundation [0752334, BNS-9119122]
- Field for Research Conservation-St. Louis Zoo
- Sigma Xi
- Wenner-Gren Pre-doctoral Research Grant [5401]
- National Geographic Research Grant [4734-92]
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci [0752334] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We examined the mechanisms guiding male affiliative relationships among ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) to investigate the adaptive significance of male social bonds in a female dominant, strictly seasonally breeding strepsirhine primate. To test whether male affiliative relationships were driven by reproductive and/or ecological conditions, we compared the frequency of male affiliation across the annual reproductive cycle in populations of L. catta inhabiting three habitat types found within its geographic range: (1) gallery forest at Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve in southwestern Madagascar; (2) spiny bush at Cap Sainte-Marie (CSM) in southern Madagascar; and (3) rocky-outcrop forest fragments at Anja Reserve and the Tsaranoro Valley in Madagascar's south-central highlands. Each study period spanned the gestation, lactation/migration, post-migration, and mating periods. Inter-male affiliation rates varied across reproductive periods at each of the four sites, with the highest frequencies being observed during the gestation and lactation/migration periods and the lowest frequencies occurring during the mating period. In contrast, we found no clear patterns in male female affiliation rates with respect to reproductive period. Comparing the Beza Mahafaly and CSM populations, rates of inter-male affiliation were higher at CSM during the gestation and lactation/migration periods, and rates male female affiliation were higher at CSM across all seasons except the post-migration period. We suggest that inter-male affiliative relationships in L. catta may provide beneficial social interactions (i.e., grooming, ectoparasite control, predator protection, vigilance against extra-group male agonism) when females are unavailable, particularly during male dispersal, as well as under harsh climatic conditions characteristic of some L. catta habitats.
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