Baboons Need Friends

Baboons have a hierarchical society, in which some animals rank higher than others. Among females, this rank is mostly inherited; the daughters of high -ranking mothers have high rank. This allows them first access to the best food, and a central position in the group when it is threatened. You might think that this advantage would translate into evolutionary success, but a new study that followed a large troop for seven years found that high-ranking female did not raise more offspring than low-ranking females.

What did make a difference was the strength of the mother's social network. The more "friends" a mother had, and the more friendly interactions, the better her reproductive success. The most successful mothers were the ones that had put the most effort into developing their support networks, through actions like grooming other females and sharing food.

Working bottom up from the trends they found in the baboon's behavior, the researchers grouped the baboons into three distinct personality profiles: "nice," "aloof" and "loner."

Nice females were friendly to all others and often grunted to lower-ranking females to signal reassurance. They formed strong and enduring social bonds with fairly consistent partner preferences over time.

Aloof females were more aggressive and less friendly, and they grunted primarily to higher-ranking females who had infants. They formed weaker bonds but had very consistent partner preferences.

Loner females were often alone and relatively unfriendly; they grunted primarily to appease higher-ranking females without infants. They formed weak bonds with changing partners.

Both "nice" and "aloof" baboons were successful mothers; loners did the worst.

It is generally true that among highly social species like baboons and humans, the most useful skills are social.