Primate social organization evolved from a flexible pair-living ancestor.

ABSTRACT: Explaining the evolution of primate social organization has been fundamental to understand human sociality and social evolution more broadly. It has often been suggested that the ancestor of all primates was solitary and that other forms of social organization evolved later, with transitions being driven by various life history traits and ecological factors. However, recent research showed that many understudied primate species previously assumed to be solitary actually live in pairs, and intraspecific variation in social organization is common. We built a detailed database from primary field studies quantifying the number of social units expressing different social organizations in each population. We used Bayesian phylogenetic models to infer the probability of each social organization,

SUBMITTER: Olivier CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10769843 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature