Dados do Trabalho

Título

Relatedness, dispersal patterns and affiliative behavior of the endemic varied white-faced capuchin monkey (Cebus versicolor) in a fragmented landscape in Colombia.

Resumo

The influence of kinship on the social behavior and on the maintenance of social bonds in long-lived gregarious animals remains a contested topic in the study of animal behavior. This is particularly true for social mammals, such as primates, who often create long-lasting bonds with relatives and non-relatives. Given that relatedness between group members is influenced by dispersal patterns and reproductive strategies within each population, here we describe the molecular ecology of a population of the endemic varied white-faced capuchin monkey (Cebus versicolor) living in a fragmented landscape in Colombia, and evaluate the relation between relatedness and rates of affiliative behaviors. We calculated genetic structure, assignment indexes and pairwise relatedness for 50 individuals from two neighboring groups, using 11 microsatellite markers. We collected data on the social behavior of one of these social groups and compared grooming rates of all dyads and its correlation with genetic relatedness. We found no signals of genetic structure between the social groups when considering males (Fst= 0.04, p= 0.337), or females (Fst= 0.021, p=0.865). Females had a mean assignment index significantly higher than males on the population (AIc males= -0.63, females =0.60, p= 0.02), although some females obtained very negative AIcs. The mean relatedness between co-resident females (living in the same social group) was higher than that obtained for co-resident males (R males= 0.002, females= 0.1, p= 0.04). Affiliative behaviors were more frequent among females, but there was no positive correlation between grooming and relatedness. These results suggest that dispersal in this population is slightly biased towards males, with occasional cases of migrations by females, and may also reflect a case of group fission. Finally, our results suggest that for this population of C. versicolor relatedness might not be the main driver for the establishment of long lasting bonds between group members.

Financiamento

Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

Palavras-chave

Sex-biased dispersal; genetic structure; grooming; pairwise relatedness; molecular ecology