Male-infant Caretaking In Tibetan Macaque At Mt.Huang

Unlike most Old World monkeys, male Tibetan macaques frequently associate with and care for infants shortly after birth. Three functional hypotheses have been proposed to explain male-infant interactions in this and other species. (1) The 'paternal investment hypothesis' proposes that males invest in their own progeny or otherwise related infants, (2) the 'mating effort hypothesis' proposes males care for infants to increase their access to mothers, and (3) the 'agonistic buffering hypothesis'proposes that males use infants to regulate their relations with other males.Whether the paternal investment hypothesis is better suited to explain male-infant relations in other species living in multimale groups such as Tibetan macaques remains to be tested by genetic data. This study was designed to collect the systematically male-infant caretaking data in order to discern its functions and test "paternal investment hypothesis" (male-infant caretaking and paternity), and make a animal model for human being to explore how male recognize kinship, facilitate the development of behavior ecology and perceive biology and so on.The study site is located on the southern slope of Mt.Huang (30°29'N, 118°11'W), Anhui province. Since 1995, Professor Li continuously studied Yulingkeng A-2 group. All individuals of the study group include six infants, who were identified via physical characteristics, and the population changes of the study group caused by birth, death and male transfer were known from 1995. Data were collected during the birth season from March 8 to June 1, mating season from July 26 to September 22, 2005. Focal animal sampling was used to record holding, bridging, grooming, and proximity infants by males, using of an infant in bridging from as soon as possible after birth. I observed the monkeys at the feeding station and in the forest every day unless heavy rain interrupted the observations, and selected target animals as randomly as possible. A session of focal sampling lasted 20 minutes, and two samples on the same infant were separated at least 30 minutes. Recording pen was used for data collecting and timing. Total 21520 minutes of behavioral data was collected for six infants throughout the study, comprising of 3587 min data collection per infant (range from 3480 minutes to 3700). Data was analyzed bySPSS 10.0.The results indicate that there was a significant positive correlation between male...