Wild female baboons bias their social behaviour towards paternal half-sisters.

Adult female cercopithecines have long been known to bias their social behaviour towards close maternal kin. However, much less is understood about the behaviour of paternal kin, especially in wild populations. Here, we show that wild adult female baboons bias their affiliative behaviour towards their adult paternal half-sisters in the same manner and to the same extent that they bias their behaviour towards adult maternal half-sisters. Females appear to rely heavily on social familiarity as a means of biasing their behaviour towards paternal half-sisters, but may use phenotype matching as well.

Duke Scholars

Author Susan C. Alberts Biology