Bonobos could be as violent or extra violent than chimpanzees | Science | EUROtoday

For many years, a dichotomous picture of the 2 primate species closest to people has been constructed: whereas chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are very aggressive and violence is on the base of their social relationships, the bonobos (Pan paniscus), are the peaceable cousins, who settle virtually all their disagreements with intercourse and caresses. However, the remark of a number of communities of each species for hundreds of hours exhibits that issues are considerably extra advanced: male bonobos triple the assaults carried out by chimpanzees when the sufferer is one other male.

“I remember that at the beginning of my first field season, we were in the jungle and the bonobos had just woken up, everything was still calm when I heard screams and cries. I saw two furballs running through the trees, one bonobo chasing the other. It was an attack, in the morning, so early. I saw another one about 10 or 15 minutes later. “It raised a lot of questions in me about the use of violence by the bonobos,” recollects Boston University researcher Maud Mouginot of her four-month keep within the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve (Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 2019, which It adopted one other season the earlier 12 months in Gombe National Park, the place there are a number of chimpanzee communities. These two durations observing the 2 species had been the premise for beginning a piece that now, 5 years later, has simply printed its ends in Current Biology.

During 2,047 hours of observing three communities of Kokolopori bonobos, Mouginot and his analysis colleagues counted 521 assaults. Most of them had been easy pushes and chases. But in 14.8% of circumstances there was bodily injury. Meanwhile, within the 7,309 hours watching two teams of Gombe chimpanzees, they recorded 654 aggressive interactions, 15.1% involving contact. “I was surprised by the results! Bonobos have a reputation for being peaceful, but I always thought that was an overly simplistic way of looking at such a complex species,” says Mouginot. It is among the keys to this work, which quantifies and classifies various kinds of violence.

Going into element is while you go from eventualities the place every thing was black or white to others stuffed with grey. Although basically the assaults of bonobos are much less critical (and in all of the scientific literature there has not been a single deadly case described), amongst males of this species there are 2.8 extra assaults than amongst male chimpanzees they usually triple when there may be Physical damages. “I did not expect to find such rates of aggression between males,” highlights Mouginot. Only in 16% of the circumstances was it an assault on a feminine, a proportion virtually an identical to that noticed in the wrong way, from a feminine to a male. Everything adjustments with chimpanzees.

“The male-female dynamic is very different between the two species. In bonobos, females are co-dominant with males and can form coalitions against them. “Therefore, females can act aggressively against males alone or in coalition, and male bonobos rarely act aggressively against females.” The situation is radically different between P. troglodytes. “Among chimpanzees, males form coalitions and outrank all females. They sexually force them to mate with them and therefore act aggressively against them. “These social dynamics change the interactions between males and females and the rates of aggression between the sexes.” Specifically, as much as 32% of male assaults are directed at a feminine, whereas the alternative state of affairs was noticed only one.8% of the time.

The French researcher provides one of many keys when she talks about coalitions. Almost non-existent amongst male bonobos, it’s a frequent observe amongst chimpanzees, each to assault or defend themselves throughout the group itself, and to unleash actual wars in opposition to different teams through which they actively search to kill rivals. The different secret’s mating. Females of each species have periodic swellings on their genitals, indicating that they’re ovulating. Among the chimpanzees, they discovered that probably the most aggressive ones had a better variety of copulations with the extra tumescent females. Although additionally they noticed this relationship amongst bonobos, the statistical sign was a lot smaller.

“The aggression of males against females is much lower in bonobos and they do not seem to use it in the context of mating”

Martin Surbeck, primatologist on the Pan Lab at Harvard University, United States

Martin Surbeck was director of the Kokolopori bonobo reserve and is the principal investigator on the Pan Lab at Harvard University (United States). Regarding the violence of the 2 species, he recollects some variations confirmed by this new work: “First, there have been no reported cases of lethal aggression between bonobos, either within or between groups. “It is possible that some bonobos die as a result of wounds, but we do not see aggression aimed at killing the opponent, as has been described in the case of chimpanzees.” The other big difference has to do with the fitness sexual. “The aggression of males against females is much lower in bonobos and they do not seem to use it in the context of mating. So the absence of sexual violence is still valid, which makes it even more interesting,” he provides.

For Surbeck, “it seems clear that male aggression rates are at least equally high in bonobos (in this study they were higher, but we have to see if this difference holds including other populations). And he concludes, “they are definitely no longer the stereotypes previously portrayed.”

Primatologist Josep Call, from the University of Saint Andrews (United Kingdom), highlights from this work that “the dichotomy between aggressive chimpanzees and peaceful bonobos is a fallacy.” He provides that it was one thing that “experts have known for many years, but still, there are some who like to continue with this false dichotomy, started by de Waal many years ago.” For Call, what have to be taken into consideration is that “both chimpanzees and bonobos are aggressive, what happens is that their styles and targets They are different”. But this researcher also remembers that neither species is only aggressive. “Of course they are both also peaceful and reconcile after fighting, for example. But, again, their styles are different, for example, bonobos use more socio-sexual behaviors than chimpanzees.” The main limitation of Call's work is one that Surbeck already recognized: they only compare between the chimpanzees of Gombe and those of Kokolopori. “I would have liked to see data from other places because there are big differences between populations.” If they’d achieved so, he’s satisfied that “it would have revealed the existence of variability within and between populations and species.”

The predominant creator of this analysis, Mouginot, leaves a remaining reflection. Many primatologists, together with herself as she acknowledges, have investigated violence between these animals on the lookout for solutions to the explanations for violence between people, inserting chimpanzees on one aspect of the coin and bonobos on the opposite. “Researchers often refer to chimpanzees, or sometimes bonobos, as the best model of our last common ancestor. I think none of those species is a good model, they all followed their own evolutionary path. The interesting thing is to observe how some strategies evolve in some species and not in others.”

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