Dominance relationships and coalitionary aggression against conspecifics in female carrion crows

Funding: European Research Council (ERCStG-336536 FuncSpecGen to J.W.), the Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet (621-2013-4510 to J.W.), Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (to J.W.) and Tovetorp fieldstation through Stockholm University.Cooperation is a prevailing feature of many animal systems. Coalitionary aggression, where a group of individuals engages in coordinated behaviour to the detriment of conspecific targets, is a form of cooperation involving complex social interactions. To date, evidence has been dominated by studies in humans and other primates with a clear bias towards studies of male-male coalitions. We here characterize coalitionary aggression behaviour in a group of female carrion crows consisting of recruitment, coordinated chase, and attack. The individual of highest social rank liaised with the second most dominant individual to engage in coordinated chase and attack of a lower ranked crow on several occasions. Despite active intervention by the third most highly ranked individual opposing the offenders, the attack finally resulted in the death of the victim. All individuals were unrelated, of the same sex, and naive to the behaviour excluding kinship, reproduction, and social learning as possible drivers. Instead, the coalition may reflect a strategy of the dominant individual to secure long-term social benefits. Overall, the study provides evidence that members of the crow family engage in coordinated alliances directed against conspecifics as a possible means to manipulate their social environment.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Competition for Cooperation: variability, benefits and heritability of relational wealth in hunter-gatherers

Many defining human characteristics including theory of mind, culture and language relate to our sociality, and facilitate the formation and maintenance of cooperative relationships. Therefore, deciphering the context in which our sociality evolved is invaluable in understanding what makes us unique as a species. Much work has emphasised group-level competition, such as warfare, in moulding human cooperation and sociality. However, competition and cooperation also occur within groups; and inter-individual differences in sociality have reported fitness implications in numerous non-human taxa. Here we investigate whether differential access to cooperation (relational wealth) is likely to lead to variation in fitness at the individual level among BaYaka hunter-gatherers. Using economic gift games we find that relational wealth: a) displays individual-level variation; b) provides advantages in buffering food risk, and is positively associated with body mass index (BMI) and female fertility; c) is partially heritable. These results highlight that individual-level processes may have been fundamental in the extension of human cooperation beyond small units of related individuals, and in shaping our sociality. Additionally, the findings offer insight in to trends related to human sociality found from research in other fields such as psychology and epidemiology

Fear of predation drives stable and differentiated social relationships in guppies

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this record.Social relationships can have important consequences for fitness in animals. Whilst numerous studies have shown that individuals often join larger groups in response to perceived predation risk (i.e. fear of predation), the importance of predation risk in driving the formation and stability of social relationships within groups has been relatively ignored. We experimentally tested how predation threat influenced fine-scale social network structure using Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata). When perceived predation risk was high, individuals developed stable and more differentiated social ties compared to when perceived risk was low. Intriguingly, social differentiation coincided with shoals being somewhat smaller under high-perceived risk, suggesting a possible conflict between forming stable social relationships and larger social groups. Individuals most at risk of predation (large and bold individuals) showed the most exaggerated responses in several social measures. Taken together, we provide the first experimental evidence that proximate risk of predation can increase the intensity of social relationships and fine-scale social structure in animal populations.DPC acknowledges funding from the National Environmental Research Council (NE/E001181/1) and Leverhulme Trust (RPG-175) and SKD and DPC acknowledge funding from The Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF – 1323-00105)

Highly polymorphic microsatellite markers for the assessment of male reproductive skew and genetic variation in Critically Endangered crested macaques (Macaca nigra)

Genetic analyses based on non-invasively collected samples have become an important tool for evolutionary biology and conservation. Crested macaques (Macaca nigra), endemic to Sulawesi, Indonesia, are important for our understanding of primate evolution as Sulawesi macaques represent an exceptional example of primate adaptive radiation. Crested macaques are also Critically Endangered. However, to date we know very little about their genetics. The aim of our study was to find and validate microsatellite markers useful for evolutionary, conservation and other genetic studies on wild crested macaques. Using faecal samples of 176 wild macaques living in the Tangkoko Reserve, Sulawesi, we identified 12 polymorphic microsatellite loci through cross-species PCR amplification with later modification of some of these primers. We tested their suitability by investigating and exploring patterns of paternity, observed heterozygosity and evidence for inbreeding. We assigned paternity to 63 of 65 infants with high confidence. Among cases with solved paternity, we found no evidence of extra-group paternity and natal breeding. We found a relatively steep male reproductive skew B index of 0.330±0.267; mean±SD) and mean alpha paternity of 65% per year with large variation across groups and years (29-100%). Finally, we detected an excess in observed heterozygosity and no evidence of inbreeding across our three study groups, with an observed heterozygosity of 0.766±0.059 and expected heterozygosity of 0.708±0.059, and an inbreeding coefficient of -0.082±0.035. Our results indicate that the selected markers are useful for genetic studies on wild crested macaques, and possible also other Sulawesi and closely related macaques. They further suggest that the Tangkoko population of crested macaques is still genetically variable despite its small size, isolation and the species’ reproductive patterns. This gives us hope that other endangered primate species living in small, isolated populations may also retain a healthy gene pool, at least in the short term

Differential Impact of Tetratricopeptide Repeat Proteins on the Steroid Hormone Receptors

Tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) motif containing co-chaperones of the chaperone Hsp90 are considered control modules that govern activity and specificity of this central folding platform. Steroid receptors are paradigm clients of Hsp90. The influence of some TPR proteins on selected receptors has been described, but a comprehensive analysis of the effects of TPR proteins on all steroid receptors has not been accomplished yet.We compared the influence of the TPR proteins FK506 binding proteins 51 and 52, protein phosphatase-5, C-terminus of Hsp70 interacting protein, cyclophillin 40, hepatitis-virus-B X-associated protein-2, and tetratricopeptide repeat protein-2 on all six steroid hormone receptors in a homogeneous mammalian cell system. To be able to assess each cofactor's effect on the transcriptional activity of on each steroid receptor we employed transient transfection in a reporter gene assay. In addition, we evaluated the interactions of the TPR proteins with the receptors and components of the Hsp90 chaperone heterocomplex by coimmunoprecipitation. In the functional assays, corticosteroid and progesterone receptors displayed the most sensitive and distinct reaction to the TPR proteins. Androgen receptor's activity was moderately impaired by most cofactors, whereas the Estrogen receptors' activity was impaired by most cofactors only to a minor degree. Second, interaction studies revealed that the strongly receptor-interacting co-chaperones were all among the inhibitory proteins. Intriguingly, the TPR-proteins also differentially co-precipitated the heterochaperone complex components Hsp90, Hsp70, and p23, pointing to differences in their modes of action.The results of this comprehensive study provide important insight into chaperoning of diverse client proteins via the combinatorial action of (co)-chaperones. The differential effects of the TPR proteins on steroid receptors bear on all physiological processes related to steroid hormone activity

Ethical framework of assistive devices: review and reflection

The population of ageing is growing significantly over the world, and there is an emerging demand for better healthcare services and more care centres. Innovations of Information and Communication Technology has resulted in development of various types of assistive robots to fulfil elderly’s needs and independency, whilst carrying out daily routine tasks. This makes it vital to have a clear understanding of elderly’s needs and expectations from assistive robots. This paper addresses current ethical issues to understand elderly’s prime needs. Also, we consider other general ethics with the purpose of applying these theories to form a proper ethics framework. In the ethics framework, the ethical concerns of senior citizens will be prioritized to satisfy elderly’s needs and also to diminish related expenses to healthcare services

Triadic awareness predicts partner choice in male–infant–male interactions in Barbary macaques

Social knowledge beyond one’s direct relationships is a key to successful maneuvering of the social world. Individuals gather information on the quality of social relationships between their group companions, which has been termed triadic awareness. Evidence of the use of triadic awareness in natural contexts is limited mainly to conflict management. Here we investigated triadic awareness in wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in the context of bridging interactions defined as male-infant-male interactions whereby a male (actor) presents an infant to another male (receiver) in order to initiate an affiliative interaction with that male. Analyses based on 1,263 hours of focal observations on ten infants of one wild social group in Morocco supported the hypothesis that males use their knowledge of the relationship between infants and other adult males when choosing a male as a partner for bridging interactions. Specifically, (i) the number of bridging interactions among initiator-infant-receiver triads was affected by the strength of the infant-receiver relationship and (ii) when two males were available as bridging partners, a male was more likely to be chosen as the receiver the stronger his social relationship with the infant in comparison to the other available male was. This demonstrates that non-human primates establish triadic awareness also of temporarily rather dynamic infant-male relationships and use it in naturally occurring affiliative context. Our results contribute to the discussion about the mechanism underlying the acquisition of triadic awareness and the benefits of its usage and lend support to hypotheses linking social complexity to the evolution of complex cognition

Dominance relationships and coalitionary aggression against conspecifics in female carrion crows

Cooperation is a prevailing feature of many animal systems. Coalitionary aggression, where a group of individuals engages in coordinated behaviour to the detriment of conspecific targets, is a form of cooperation involving complex social interactions. To date, evidence has been dominated by studies in humans and other primates with a clear bias towards studies of male-male coalitions. We here characterize coalitionary aggression behaviour in a group of female carrion crows consisting of recruitment, coordinated chase, and attack. The individual of highest social rank liaised with the second most dominant individual to engage in coordinated chase and attack of a lower ranked crow on several occasions. Despite active intervention by the third most highly ranked individual opposing the offenders, the attack finally resulted in the death of the victim. All individuals were unrelated, of the same sex, and naive to the behaviour excluding kinship, reproduction, and social learning as possible drivers. Instead, the coalition may reflect a strategy of the dominant individual to secure long-term social benefits. Overall, the study provides evidence that members of the crow family engage in coordinated alliances directed against conspecifics as a possible means to manipulate their social environment