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Holmes KG, Krützen M, Ridley AR, Allen SJ, Connor RC, Gerber L, Flaherty Stamm C, King SL. Juvenile social play predicts adult reproductive success in male bottlenose dolphins. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2305948121. [PMID: 38857400 PMCID: PMC11194510 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2305948121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2023] [Accepted: 03/14/2024] [Indexed: 06/12/2024] Open
Abstract
For over a century, the evolution of animal play has sparked scientific curiosity. The prevalence of social play in juvenile mammals suggests that play is a beneficial behavior, potentially contributing to individual fitness. Yet evidence from wild animals supporting the long-hypothesized link between juvenile social play, adult behavior, and fitness remains limited. In Western Australia, adult male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) form multilevel alliances that are crucial for their reproductive success. A key adult mating behavior involves allied males using joint action to herd individual females. Juveniles of both sexes invest significant time in play that resembles adult herding-taking turns in mature male (actor) and female (receiver) roles. Using a 32-y dataset of individual-level association patterns, paternity success, and behavioral observations, we show that juvenile males with stronger social bonds are significantly more likely to engage in joint action when play-herding in actor roles. Juvenile males also monopolized the actor role and produced an adult male herding vocalization ("pops") when playing with females. Notably, males who spent more time playing in the actor role as juveniles achieved more paternities as adults. These findings not only reveal that play behavior provides male dolphins with mating skill practice years before they sexually mature but also demonstrate in a wild animal population that juvenile social play predicts adult reproductive success.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn G. Holmes
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA6009, Australia
| | - Michael Krützen
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA6009, Australia
- Evolutionary Genetics Group, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich8057, Switzerland
| | - Amanda R. Ridley
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA6009, Australia
| | - Simon J. Allen
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA6009, Australia
- Evolutionary Genetics Group, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich8057, Switzerland
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, BristolBS8 1TQ, United Kingdom
| | - Richard C. Connor
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA6009, Australia
- Biology Department, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA02747
- Department of Biological Sciences and Institute of Environment, Florida International University, North Miami, FL33181
| | - Livia Gerber
- Evolutionary Genetics Group, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich8057, Switzerland
- Australian National Wildlife Collection, National Research Collections Australia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Canberra, ACT2601, Australia
| | | | - Stephanie L. King
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA6009, Australia
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, BristolBS8 1TQ, United Kingdom
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Burghardt GM, Pellis SM, Schank JC, Smaldino PE, Vanderschuren LJMJ, Palagi E. Animal play and evolution: Seven timely research issues about enigmatic phenomena. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2024; 160:105617. [PMID: 38458553 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2023] [Revised: 02/06/2024] [Accepted: 03/02/2024] [Indexed: 03/10/2024]
Abstract
The nature of play in animals has been long debated, but progress is being made in characterizing play and its variants, documenting its distribution across vertebrate and invertebrate taxa, describing its mechanisms and development, and proposing testable theories about its origins, evolution, and adaptive functions. To achieve a deeper understanding of the functions and evolution of play, integrative and conceptual advances are needed in neuroscience, computer modeling, phylogenetics, experimental techniques, behavior development, and inter- and intra-specific variation. The special issue contains papers documenting many of these advances. Here, we describe seven timely areas where further research is needed to understand this still enigmatic class of phenomena more fully. Growing empirical and theoretical evidence reveals that play has been crucial in the evolution of behavior and psychology but has been underestimated, if not ignored, in both empirical and theoretical areas of evolutionary biology and neuroscience. Play research has important ramifications for understanding the evolution of cognition, emotion, and culture, and research on animals can be both informative and transformative.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gordon M Burghardt
- Departments of Psychology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA.
| | - Sergio M Pellis
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
| | - Jeffrey C Schank
- Department of Psychology and Animal Behavior Graduate Group, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Paul E Smaldino
- Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA, USA, and Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA
| | - Louk J M J Vanderschuren
- Department of Population Health Sciences, Section Animals in Science and Society, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Elisabetta Palagi
- Unit of Ethology, Department of Biology, University of Pisa and Natural History Museum, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
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Fitzpatrick LLJ, Ligabue-Braun R, Nekaris KAI. Slowly Making Sense: A Review of the Two-Step Venom System within Slow ( Nycticebus spp.) and Pygmy Lorises ( Xanthonycticebus spp.). Toxins (Basel) 2023; 15:514. [PMID: 37755940 PMCID: PMC10536643 DOI: 10.3390/toxins15090514] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2023] [Revised: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 08/18/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Since the early 2000s, studies of the evolution of venom within animals have rapidly expanded, offering new revelations on the origins and development of venom within various species. The venomous mammals represent excellent opportunities to study venom evolution due to the varying functional usages, the unusual distribution of venom across unrelated mammals and the diverse variety of delivery systems. A group of mammals that excellently represents a combination of these traits are the slow (Nycticebus spp.) and pygmy lorises (Xanthonycticebus spp.) of south-east Asia, which possess the only confirmed two-step venom system. These taxa also present one of the most intriguing mixes of toxic symptoms (cytotoxicity and immunotoxicity) and functional usages (intraspecific competition and ectoparasitic defence) seen in extant animals. We still lack many pieces of the puzzle in understanding how this venom system works, why it evolved what is involved in the venom system and what triggers the toxic components to work. Here, we review available data building upon a decade of research on this topic, focusing especially on why and how this venom system may have evolved. We discuss that research now suggests that venom in slow lorises has a sophisticated set of multiple uses in both intraspecific competition and the potential to disrupt the immune system of targets; we suggest that an exudate diet reveals several toxic plants consumed by slow and pygmy lorises that could be sequestered into their venom and which may help heal venomous bite wounds; we provide the most up-to-date visual model of the brachial gland exudate secretion protein (BGEsp); and we discuss research on a complement component 1r (C1R) protein in saliva that may solve the mystery of what activates the toxicity of slow and pygmy loris venom. We conclude that the slow and pygmy lorises possess amongst the most complex venom system in extant animals, and while we have still a lot more to understand about their venom system, we are close to a breakthrough, particularly with current technological advances.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leah Lucy Joscelyne Fitzpatrick
- Nocturnal Primate Research Group, Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
- Centre for Functional Genomics, Department of Health and Life Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
| | - Rodrigo Ligabue-Braun
- Department of Pharmacosciences, Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), Avenida Sarmento Leite 245, Porto Alegre 90050-170, Brazil;
| | - K. Anne-Isola Nekaris
- Nocturnal Primate Research Group, Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
- Centre for Functional Genomics, Department of Health and Life Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
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Ham JR, Lilley MK, Lelekach J, Miller MR, Robeck TR, Pellis SM, Manitzas Hill HM. The emergence and early development of socio-sexual behavior in beluga calves (Delphinapterus leucas). Behav Processes 2022; 200:104695. [PMID: 35779700 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104695] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2022] [Revised: 06/10/2022] [Accepted: 06/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
While the ontogeny of beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) socio-sexual behavior has been documented in animals between 37- and 108-months-old, the first 36 months of life are yet to be examined. This study investigated how socio-sexual behaviors emerge over the first three years of life in a group of belugas in managed care. The emergence of socio-sexual behaviors was relatively consistent among immature animals. More complex behaviors, like s-posture presentations, developed in a piecemeal fashion (i.e., simple components of the behavior sequence emerged before complex components). The presence of an adult male significantly predicted if immature belugas would initiate and participate in socio-sexual behavior. However, partner preferences changed with age. In the first year of life, belugas engaged in sexual behavior with their mother most frequently but preferred to play with older males if given a choice. By the third year of life, belugas engaged in socio-sexual behavior most frequently with other immature animals. These findings enhance our understanding of how belugas develop sexually and socially and have implications for social housing practices of immature belugas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jackson R Ham
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada.
| | - Malin K Lilley
- Department of Life Sciences, Texas A & M - San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
| | - Jessica Lelekach
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada
| | | | | | - Sergio M Pellis
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada
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Nekaris KA, Campera M, Watkins AR, Weldon AV, Hedger K, Morcatty TQ. Aposematic signaling and seasonal variation in dorsal pelage in a venomous mammal. Ecol Evol 2021; 11:11387-11397. [PMID: 34429927 PMCID: PMC8366853 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7928] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2020] [Revised: 07/01/2021] [Accepted: 07/02/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
In mammals, colouration patterns are often related to concealment, intraspecific communication, including aposematic signals, and physiological adaptations. Slow lorises (Nycticebus spp.) are arboreal primates native to Southeast Asia that display stark colour contrast, are highly territorial, regularly enter torpor, and are notably one of only seven mammal taxa that possess venom. All slow loris species display a contrasting stripe that runs cranial-caudally along the median sagittal plane of the dorsum. We examine whether these dorsal markings facilitate background matching, seasonal adaptations, and intraspecific signaling. We analyzed 195 images of the dorsal region of 60 Javan slow loris individuals (Nycticebus javanicus) from Java, Indonesia. We extracted greyscale RGB values from dorsal pelage using ImageJ software and calculated contrast ratios between dorsal stripe and adjacent pelage in eight regions. We assessed through generalized linear mixed models if the contrast ratio varied with sex, age, and seasonality. We also examined whether higher contrast was related to more aggressive behavior or increased terrestrial movement. We found that the dorsal stripe of N. javanicus changed seasonally, being longer and more contrasting in the wet season, during which time lorises significantly increased their ground use. Stripes were most contrasting in younger individuals of dispersal age that were also the most aggressive during capture. The dorsal stripe became less contrasting as a loris aged. A longer stripe when ground use is more frequent can be related to disruptive colouration. A darker anterior region by younger lorises with less fighting experience may allow them to appear larger and fiercer. We provide evidence that the dorsum of a cryptic species can have multimodal signals related to concealment, intraspecific communication, and physiological adaptations.
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Affiliation(s)
- K. Anne‐Isola Nekaris
- Nocturnal Primate Research GroupFaculty of Humanities and Social SciencesOxford Brookes UniversityOxfordUK
- Little Fireface ProjectCipagantiJavaIndonesia
| | - Marco Campera
- Nocturnal Primate Research GroupFaculty of Humanities and Social SciencesOxford Brookes UniversityOxfordUK
- Little Fireface ProjectCipagantiJavaIndonesia
| | - Anna R. Watkins
- Nocturnal Primate Research GroupFaculty of Humanities and Social SciencesOxford Brookes UniversityOxfordUK
| | - Ariana V. Weldon
- Nocturnal Primate Research GroupFaculty of Humanities and Social SciencesOxford Brookes UniversityOxfordUK
| | | | - Thais Q. Morcatty
- Nocturnal Primate Research GroupFaculty of Humanities and Social SciencesOxford Brookes UniversityOxfordUK
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