Abstract
Chimpanzee societies generally show male philopatry and female dispersal. However, demographic data on wild chimpanzee societies from long-term study sites have revealed that some females give birth in their natal group (i.e., “remaining females”). Here, we report two remaining females in the M group in Mahale, Tanzania, and compare their cases with previous reports to explore the social and ecological factors that lead to females remaining in their natal group. The results revealed that neither the social traits of the remaining females nor the ecological factors they experienced showed a coherent trend. However, we found multiple, non-mutually exclusive potential factors that may influence the decision by females to remain in their natal group: a decrease in indirect feeding competition, support from mothers or allomothers in the care of offspring and in aggressive interactions with other individuals, close relationships with the other remaining females, and a short adolescent infertility period. Additionally, we observed a natal female copulating with her older brother, which was the first observation of brother–sister incest in Mahale. Although DNA analysis revealed that her infant was not a product of inbreeding, the pair copulated frequently in the latter half of her estrus period, suggesting that they did not avoid incest behaviorally to avoid inbreeding. Furthermore, there was no hard evidence that the remaining female avoided mating with her maternal brother, suggesting that incest avoidance may not be a proximate factor responsible for female dispersal.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), and the Mahale-Gombe Wildlife Research Centre (MGWRC) for permission to conduct this research at Mahale (permit numbers 2010-215-NA-2009-26, 2011-166-ER-2006-26, 2012-409-ER-2009-26, 2014-23-NA-2005-40, and 2015-165-ER-2009-26). We also thank the local assistants of the Mahale Mountains Chimpanzee Research Project (MMCRP) for recording demographic data and for their daily help in the field, and Toshimichi Nemoto, Toshiaki Aizawa, and Japan Tanzania Tours for their logistical support. We are grateful to our research colleagues at MMCRP for providing the demographic data and for their generous support at the field site. We thank Kazuhiko Hosaka, Miya Hamai, and Tetsuya Sakamaki for checking their behavioral data on brother–sister incest in Mahale. We also thank Gen Yamakoshi for providing information about the ecological environment and the chimpanzees in Bossou. We thank Michio Nakamura for his meticulous comments on the earlier version of the manuscript. We appreciate the support and encouragement of Ichiro Tayasu and colleagues of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature. This research was financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (grant numbers 19J40031 and 20K20875 to TM; 19H05591 to TM and SH; 24255010 to TM and EI; 12J00004 to SH; 24770234 to TK; and 12J04270 and 16K18630 to TH), ILCAA Joint Research Project “Human Society in evolutionary perspectives (4)” and “The Origin of Human Sociality: towards New Perspective on Hominization” to SH, and the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN: a constituent member of NIHU) Project No. 14300001 to TM.
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All authors contributed to the conception and design of the study. Behavioral data collection was performed by TM, SH, and TK. DNA analysis and material preparation were performed by TM, TH, and EI. The first draft of the manuscript was prepared by TM and all authors revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Matsumoto, T., Hanamura, S., Kooriyama, T. et al. Female chimpanzees giving first birth in their natal group in Mahale: attention to incest between brothers and sisters. Primates 62, 279–287 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-020-00886-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-020-00886-3