In many primate species, former opponents engage in friendly behaviours after aggressive conflicts. These kinds of interactions are labelled reconciliation because they are thought to repair relationships damaged by conflicts and help to preserve group cohesion. This study assessed the form and function of reconciliation between free-ranging female baboons, Papio cynocephalus ursinus, in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. The rate of interaction between former opponents was higher during the minutes that followed conflicts than in the days that preceded or followed conflicts. Baboons reconciled vocally, grunting quietly to their former opponents after conflicts ended. Grunts after conflicts facilitated infant handling. Females were particularly likely to reconcile with high-ranking opponents, the mothers of young infants and related mothers of older infants. Reconciliation had no consistent effect upon the rate of interactions during the days that followed conflicts. This study is the first to demonstrate that primates reconcile vocally and the first to assess the long-term consequences of reconcilation in a naturalistic setting.
The role of grunts in reconciling opponents and facilitating interactions among adult female baboons
Female baboons, Papio cynocephalus ursinus, often grunt when approaching lower-ranking females. These grunts appear to have a mollifying effect on subordinates. Observations of 19 adult females conducted over an 11-month period in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, revealed that high-ranking females were less likely to supplant more subordinate females, and more likely to engage in friendly interactions with them, when they grunted to their lower-ranking partners than when they remained silent. Grunts also functioned to reconcile opponents following fights. In a series of playback experiments, subjects were played the potentially threatening scream of a higher-ranking female that had recently attacked them. Subjects responded less strongly to these screams when the dominant opponent had apparently reconciled after the fight by grunting to them than when the opponent had not interacted with them again. Subjects' responses after a vocal ‘reconciliation' were similar to their responses following a control period when the two females had not interacted at all. Even in the absence of more overt friendly behaviour, therefore, baboon grunts act to restore the relationship of opponents to baseline tolerance levels.
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