Sex and grooming as exchange commodities in female bonobos' daily biological market.

ABSTRACT: The Biological Market Theory (BMT) posits that cooperation between non-human animals can be seen as a mutually beneficial exchange of commodities similarly to what observed in human economic markets. Positive social interactions are commodities in non-human animals, and mutual exchanges fulfilling the criteria of the BMT have been shown in several species. However, the study of biological markets suffers from methodological limitations that are mainly linked to the difficulty of clearly identifying the currencies and their exchanges in the short-term. Here, we test whether bonobo females are more attractive during their maximum swelling phase, whether they exchange grooming and Genito-Genital Rubbing (GGR) on a daily level of analysis, and whether these daily exchanges fulfil the BMT crite

SUBMITTER: Anza S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8481276 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature