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. 2019 Dec 17;9(1):19245.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-55884-3.

Bonobo personality predicts friendship

Jonas Verspeek  1   2 , Nicky Staes  3   4   5 , Edwin J C van Leeuwen  3   4   6 , Marcel Eens  3 , Jeroen M G Stevens  3   4
Affiliations

Bonobo personality predicts friendship

Jonas Verspeek et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

In bonobos, strong bonds have been documented between unrelated females and between mothers and their adult sons, which can have important fitness benefits. Often age, sex or kinship similarity have been used to explain social bond strength variation. Recent studies in other species also stress the importance of personality, but this relationship remains to be investigated in bonobos. We used behavioral observations on 39 adult and adolescent bonobos housed in 5 European zoos to study the role of personality similarity in dyadic relationship quality. Dimension reduction analyses on individual and dyadic behavioral scores revealed multidimensional personality (Sociability, Openness, Boldness, Activity) and relationship quality components (value, compatibility). We show that, aside from relatedness and sex combination of the dyad, relationship quality is also associated with personality similarity of both partners. While similarity in Sociability resulted in higher relationship values, lower relationship compatibility was found between bonobos with similar Activity scores. The results of this study expand our understanding of the mechanisms underlying social bond formation in anthropoid apes. In addition, we suggest that future studies in closely related species like chimpanzees should implement identical methods for assessing bond strength to shed further light on the evolution of this phenomenon.

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Conflict of interest statement

The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean (a) relationship value and (b) relationship compatibility of unrelated male-male (MM), unrelated female-male (FM), unrelated female-female (FF), mother-daughter (MD) and mother-son (MS) dyads.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The link between relationship value and the absolute difference in personality score of (a) Sociability, (b) Openness, (c) Boldness and (d) Activity per dyad for all genetic sex combinations with corresponding confidence intervals.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The link between relationship compatibility (log of the standardized scores) and the absolute difference in personality score of (a) Activity, (b) Sociability, (c) Openness, (d) Boldness per dyad for all genetic sex combinations with corresponding confidence intervals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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