Experimental evidence for delayed contingent cooperation among wild dwarf mongooses

2018/05/29 by Julie M. Kern, Andrew N. Radford · 1 voice · 26 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior #Primate Behavior and Ecology

paper · doi:10.1073/pnas.1801000115

Abstract

). First, we use natural observations and social-network analyses to demonstrate a positive link between grooming and sentinel behavior (acting as a raised guard). Group members who contributed more to sentinel behavior received more grooming and had a better social-network position. We then used a field-based playback experiment to test a causal link between contributions to sentinel behavior and grooming received later in the day. During 3-h trial sessions, the perceived sentinel contributions of a focal individual were either up-regulated (playback of its surveillance calls, which are given naturally during sentinel bouts) or unmanipulated (playback of its foraging close calls as a control). On returning to the sleeping refuge at the end of the day, focal individuals received more grooming following surveillance-call playback than control-call playback and more grooming than a matched individual whose sentinel contributions were not up-regulated. We believe our study therefore provides experimental evidence of delayed contingent cooperation in a wild nonprimate species.

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Discussions

• #MongooseMonday is here again 🎉 Dwarf mongooses track what their groupmates are up to in the day using #vocal cues, altering their #grooming in the evening. They reward helpful hounds (doi.org/10.1 [bsky, 27 points, 0 comments]

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