In a captive environment, it is challenging to ensure the highest level of social and psychological well-being for species with naturally complex social organizations and structures. There is a growing need to meet the social requirements for individuals of these species, especially chimpanzees, housed in zoos, sanctuaries, rehabilitation centers, and laboratories. Complex social interactions and broader social structures can be aptly described via social network analysis. We expand on the literature regarding captive chimpanzee social networks, but uniquely consider their human caregivers as potential social partners. We observed the social interactions between one group of seven chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and their caregivers in six behavioral contexts (nearest neighbor, play, aggression, grooming, grooming solicitation, and social vigilance) at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (USA). By constructing multiple chimpanzee and chimpanzee-caregiver social networks, our results indicate that caregivers are integrated partners in this group's social structure. Additionally, we observed that the type and strength of chimpanzee-caregiver relationships varied between the chimpanzees. These results support the notion that caregivers offer additional opportunities (i.e., beyond those with conspecifics) for captive chimpanzees to construct and maintain meaningful social relationships. Our results show that considerations of captive primate social dynamics should include caregivers as potentially important social partners. Our results also highlight the importance of evaluating individual chimpanzee characteristics when developing philosophies of care and adopting husbandry practices that offer fulfilling social niches. Our findings bear influence on contemporary discussions of interspecies social relationships, captive welfare, health, translocation, and husbandry protocols for captive chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates.

中文翻译：

---

人类看护者是圈养黑猩猩的综合社会伙伴

在圈养环境中，为具有自然复杂社会组织和结构的物种确保最高水平的社会和心理健康具有挑战性。越来越需要满足这些物种个体的社会需求，尤其是黑猩猩，它们被安置在动物园、保护区、康复中心和实验室中。通过社交网络分析可以恰当地描述复杂的社交互动和更广泛的社交结构。我们扩展了关于圈养黑猩猩社交网络的文献，但独特地将它们的人类照顾者视为潜在的社会伙伴。我们观察了一组七只黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes）与其照顾者在六种行为环境（最近的邻居、玩耍、攻击、梳理、梳理请求、和社会警戒）在西北黑猩猩保护区（美国）。通过构建多个黑猩猩和黑猩猩-看护者社交网络，我们的结果表明看护者是该群体社会结构中的整合伙伴。此外，我们观察到黑猩猩与照顾者关系的类型和强度在黑猩猩之间有所不同。这些结果支持这样一种观点，即看护者为圈养的黑猩猩提供了额外的机会（即，除了同种黑猩猩之外），以构建和维持有意义的社会关系。我们的结果表明，圈养灵长类动物社会动态的考虑应包括看护者作为潜在重要的社会伙伴。我们的结果还强调了在制定护理理念和采用提供满足社会利基的饲养实践时评估个体黑猩猩特征的重要性。我们的发现对当代关于圈养黑猩猩和其他非人类灵长类动物的种间社会关系、圈养福利、健康、易地和饲养协议的讨论产生了影响。