Marie J.E. Charpentier

Publications (2)1.54 Total impact

• Article: Relatedness and Social Behaviors in Cercopithecus solatus

  Marie J. E. Charpentier, Delphine Deubel, Patricia Peignot
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  ABSTRACT: Inclusive fitness and kin selection theories predict that organisms will evolve biased behavior toward kin when the inclusive fitness benefits outweigh the costs of such behaviors. Researchers have long observed that primates bias their behavior toward relatives, particularly maternal kin. We examined the effect of kinship on social behaviors in a semifree-ranging colony of Cercopithecus solatus, a poorly studied forest guenon species. We used microsatellite loci and paternity analyses to determine the degree of relatedness between individuals, as well as kinship. Individuals biased some of their behavior according to relatedness. Specifically, related individuals are more spatially associated and less aggressive toward each other. When we replaced the relatedness coefficients with defined kin categories, Cercopithecus solatus seemed to behave preferentially toward maternal kin versus paternal kin. Even though the setting of the colony and the small sample size limit our conclusions, we discuss the potential implications of our finding for the study of the impact of kin selection in primate social relationships.
  International Journal of Primatology 03/2008; 29(2):487-495. · 1.54 Impact Factor
• Article: Kin discrimination in juvenile mandrills, Mandrillus sphinx

  Marie J.E. Charpentier, Patricia Peignot, Martine Hossaert-McKey, E. Jean Wickings
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  ABSTRACT: Kin selection theory predicts that the evolution of social behaviours will be promoted if these behaviours increase the inclusive fitness of the individuals that perform them, for example by positively affecting relatives. The ability to identify relatives may thus be crucial in maximizing overall fitness. In primate species, whether individuals discriminate paternal relatives and the mechanisms that might permit such discrimination are still the subject of debate. Some researchers have suggested that primates are not able to discriminate relatives in the absence of familiarity. However, recent studies have shown that paternal kin discrimination could emerge from both age proximity and phenotype matching. We investigated the effects of paternal and maternal kinship on the affiliation index of juvenile mandrills, in a semifree-ranging setting. Juveniles biased their behaviour according to kinship. First, when interacting with adult females, both paternal and maternal half-siblings showed more affiliation than unrelated dyads. Affiliation between juveniles and males was also higher among both father–offspring and maternal half-sibling dyads than among unrelated dyads. While these results suggest that juvenile mandrills are able to discriminate paternal relatives, other results do not. Maternal half-siblings had a higher affiliation index than paternal half-siblings and distant kin, the latter showing no significant differences. Finally, when the mechanisms involved in discrimination of paternal kin were analysed, we found no evidence to confirm either the phenotype-matching or the age proximity hypotheses.
  Animal Behaviour.