Presentation Details
| Cooperative relationship formation in vampire bats: Does helping become more symmetrical over time? Bryson Loflin1, M.May Dixon1, 2, 3, Haley Gmutza1, Tobias Nguyen1, 2, Gerald G.Carter1, 2, 3. 1Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.2Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD, USA.3Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City Panama |
Abstract
Understanding how animals form cooperative relationships can provide insight into the complexity of social decisions and the evolution of cooperative traits. If animals form reciprocal helping relationships through conditional partner choice or subtle partner switching, then we expect helping to become more symmetrical (or reciprocal) after relationships initially form and solidify within groups. Measuring this emergent symmetry is difficult, however, because it requires 1) experimentally introducing strangers without past interactions and 2) controlling for variation across actors, receivers, and other confounding effects. Here, we quantify if and how allogrooming and allofeeding relationships changed as common vampire bats became familiar. To do this, we fit Bayesian longitudinal, multiplex social relations models to 12 years of observations of 105 adult female bats from five vampire bat study colonies. Preliminary results indicate that helping symmetry increases across time in newly developing relationships but not in familiar ones. We discuss these results in the context of hypothetical strategies of relationship formation such as “testing the waters”.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
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