Social Pair-Bonding and Resource Defense in Wild Red-Bellied Lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer)

Abstract

Several predictions can be made if pair-bonding in Malagasy lemurs is driven by resource competition and the need to defend food resources (loosely following Fuentes, 2002). First, the pair-bond will be the common group composition observed within species; these groups will be stable across reproductive seasons and periods of fluctuation in available food. Second, the exchange of affiliative behaviors (nearest neighbor association, grooming, and scent-marking) should be strongest between the adult male and adult female. Third, within-group contest for food should be minimal and rates of aggression should be low. Fourth, between-group contest for food will be more common than within-group contest for food and evidenced through conspecific and intraspecific contest over food. Fifth, both males and females are expected to be active participants in range defense. Finally, given the extreme changes in food availability patterns that have been documented in southeastern Madagascar (Hemingway and Overdorff, 1999), it is likely that within-group and between-group interactions will vary with availability patterns although within-group affiliative behaviors should remain stable