Social risk to infant: The role of kin for maternal visual monitoring in Tibetan macaques.

Maternal monitoring of conspecifics is a crucial anti-predator strategy that also protects infants against risks within the social group. This study examines how maternal characteristics, infant characteristics, mother-infant distance, and the social environment affect maternal monitoring behaviors in free-ranging Tibetan macaques (). We observed 12 females with infants and analyzed their visual monitoring patterns.

Behavioral adaptation in an adoptive free-ranging female Tibetan macaque.

Adoption is an important form of allomaternal care in nonhuman primates, with implications for reproductive output and infant survival. Here, we report a kidnapping that became an adoption of a 3-week-old infant by a mother with her own infant in Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana). The adoptive mother nursed her "new" infant (allonursing), the first observation of this behavior in the species.

Effects of Mother's Dominance Hierarchy on the Development of Social Relationships among Immature Tibetan Macaques.

During a relatively long period of growth, immature individuals rely on their mothers to obtain nutrition, and a good environment for learning social skills needed to cope with complex environments in adulthood. In this study, we collected the behavioral data of Tibetan macaques () to investigate the effects of females' social rank on the development of social relationships among their immature offspring from November to June 2021. The results show that there was no difference in the rate/type of social play and grooming among infants.

Coordination and consensus: the role of compromisers in Tibetan macaques.

Coordination and consensus in collective behavior have attracted a lot of research interest. Although previous studies have investigated the role of compromisers in group consensus, they provide little insight into why compromisers would allow such social arrangements to persist. In this study, the potential relationship between group movements and conflict management in Tibetan macaques in Anhui province, China, was investigated using hierarchical cluster analyses.

Sex-Specific Variation of Social Play in Wild Immature Tibetan Macaques, .

Theories proposed to explain social play have centered on its function in establishing social relationships critical for adulthood, its function in developing motor skills needed to survive, and promoting cognitive development and social learning. In this study, we compared variations in social play among infant and juvenile male and female . Given that this species is characterized by female philopatry and male dispersal, we hypothesized that immature females use social play as a mechanism to develop bonds that persist through adulthood whereas immature males use play to develop social skills needed to successfully enter new groups.

Infant attraction: why social bridging matters for female leadership in Tibetan macaques.

Leadership is a key issue in the study of collective behavior in social animals. Affiliation-leadership models predict that dyadic partner preferences based on grooming relationships or alliance formation positively affect an individual's decision to follow or support a conspecific. In the case of many primate species, females without young infants are attracted to mother-infant dyads.

Grooming networks reveal intra- and intersexual social relationships in Macaca thibetana.

The analysis of grooming networks is a powerful tool to examine individual social and sexual relationships and how these relationships change over time. In this study, we investigated the seasonal dynamics of intra- and intersexual social relationships in Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) based on grooming interactions. Similar to other female philopatric and male dispersal primates, female Tibetan macaques form the core of the social group with higher values of centralities, compared to the males who tend to be distributed on the periphery of the grooming network.

Bridging may help young female Tibetan macaques Macaca thibetana learn to be a mother.

Attraction to infants is a common feature of non-human primates. Frequent affiliative male-infant interactions have been observed in many multimale, multifemale groups of macaques, including a behaviour termed 'bridging' in which two male macaques simultaneously lift an infant. This behaviour has been suggested to serve as a positive affiliative interaction between the adult or subadult males.

Interchange between grooming and infant handling in female Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana).

In some nonhuman primates, infants function as a social tool that can bridge relationships among group members. Infants are a desired commodity for group members, and mothers control access to them. The biological market theory suggests that grooming is widespread and represents a commodity that can be exchanged for infant handling.

Social rank versus affiliation: Which is more closely related to leadership of group movements in Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana)?

Research on leadership is a critical step for understanding collective decision making. However, only 4 of the 22 extant macaque species have been examined for the impact of social rank and affiliation on the initiation of collective movement. It is far from clear whether such impact exists and, if so, how it works among other macaques.

[Male-to-female agonistic support for copulation in Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) at Huangshan, China].

Biological market theory predicts that animals exchange the same commodities, or interchange different ones, to their mutual benefit. Using focal and behavioral sampling methods and continuous recording techniques, we studied Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) in two study groups (YA1 and YA2) at Huangshan, China to see whether adults interchanged male-to-female agonistic support for copulation. Overall, male-to-female agonistic support was significantly correlated with copulation behaviors when data from both study groups were combined.

Grooming reciprocity in male Tibetan macaques.

In several primate species, adult males are reported to compete for access to reproductive partners as well as forming affiliative and cohesive social bonds based on the exchange of goods or services. We hypothesized that among a broad set of fitness-maximizing strategies, grooming can be used by individual adult males to enhance social relationships through reciprocity and/or through the interchange of grooming for a different but equivalent good or service. We used focal animal sampling and continuously recorded dyadic grooming and agonistic interactions to test a series of predictions regarding male social interactions in a free-ranging group of Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) at Huangshan, China.

Seasonal variation and synchronization of sexual behaviors in free-ranging male Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) at Huangshan, China.

Although seasonal breeding has been documented in many non-human primates, it is not clear whether sexual behaviors show seasonal variation among male individuals. To test this hypothesis, the focal animal sampling method and continuous recording were used to investigate seasonal variation and synchronization of sexual behaviors in five male Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) at Mt. Huangshan from Oct 2005 to Sept 2006.

[Comparisons of aggressive behavior for Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana) to tourists from Mt. Huangshan, China].

To investigate the relationship between monkey-human aggressive behaviors and age/sex classes of monkey (initiator) and human (recipient), by using all-occurrence sampling and continuous recording, we evaluated the monkey-human aggressive behaviors between macaques (Macaca thibetana) and tourists at Mt. Huangshan in two periods (Nov.-Dec.

Taurine protected kidney from oxidative injury through mitochondrial-linked pathway in a rat model of nephrolithiasis.

Hyperoxaluria and crystal deposition induce oxidative stress (OS) and renal epithelial cells injury, both mitochondria and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase are considered as the main sources of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Taurine is known to have antioxidant activity and shows renoprotective effect. We investigate the effect of taurine treatment on renal protection, and the putative source of ROS, in a rat model of calcium oxalate nephrolithiasis.

Effects of apocynin and losartan treatment on renal oxidative stress in a rat model of calcium oxalate nephrolithiasis.

Background: Tissue culture studies found that renal epithelial cells suffer oxidative injury on exposure to high levels of oxalate (Ox) and calcium oxalate (CaOx) crystals; nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase, a major source of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in kidney, has been shown to be involved in this event. The present study aimed to investigate whether this in vitro feature of NADPH oxidase could be confirmed in vivo.

Methods: Animal model of nephrolithiasis was established in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats by administration of 0.