Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland.
PLoS One. 2007 Sep 12;2(9):e886. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000886.
The sharing of wild plant foods is infrequent in chimpanzees, but in chimpanzee communities that engage in hunting, meat is frequently used as a 'social tool' for nurturing alliances and social bonds. Here we report the only recorded example of regular sharing of plant foods by unrelated, non-provisioned wild chimpanzees, and the contexts in which these sharing behaviours occur. From direct observations, adult chimpanzees at Bossou (Republic of Guinea, West Africa) very rarely transferred wild plant foods. In contrast, they shared cultivated plant foods much more frequently (58 out of 59 food sharing events). Sharing primarily consists of adult males allowing reproductively cycling females to take food that they possess. We propose that hypotheses focussing on 'food-for-sex and -grooming' and 'showing-off' strategies plausibly account for observed sharing behaviours. A changing human-dominated landscape presents chimpanzees with fresh challenges, and our observations suggest that crop-raiding provides adult male chimpanzees at Bossou with highly desirable food commodities that may be traded for other currencies.
黑猩猩很少分享野生植物性食物，但在狩猎的黑猩猩群体中，肉类经常被用作培养联盟和社会关系的“社交工具”。在这里，我们报告了唯一记录到的非相关、非供应的野生黑猩猩定期分享植物性食物的例子，以及这些分享行为发生的背景。通过直接观察，博苏（几内亚共和国，西非）的成年黑猩猩很少交换野生植物性食物。相比之下，他们更频繁地分享人工种植的植物性食物（59 次食物分享事件中有 58 次）。分享主要包括雄性允许发情的雌性拿走它们拥有的食物。我们提出的假说集中于“性和梳理的食物交换”和“炫耀”策略，可以合理地解释观察到的分享行为。不断变化的以人类为主导的景观给黑猩猩带来了新的挑战，我们的观察表明，偷庄稼为博苏的雄性黑猩猩提供了非常理想的食物，这些食物可能被用来换取其他货币。
