Eberle Manfred, Kappeler Peter M
Leibnitz-Institute of Primate Research, Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology, German Primate Center (DPZ), Göttingen, Germany.
Am J Primatol. 2008 Apr;70(4):410-4. doi: 10.1002/ajp.20496.
Predator mobbing is a widespread phenomenon in many taxa but the evolution of cooperative mobbing as an adaptive behavior is still subject to debate. Here, we report evidence for cooperative predator defense in a nocturnal solitarily foraging primate, the gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus). Several mouse lemurs mobbed a snake that held a non-related male conspecific until he could escape. Evolutionary hypotheses to explain cooperative mobbing include (1) by-product mutualism, when individuals defend others in the process of defending themselves; (2) reciprocity, where animals achieve a higher fitness when helping each other than when they do not cooperate; and (3) kin selection where animals help each other only if they share genes by common descent. Owing to the solitary activity of this species, reciprocity seems to be least likely to explain our observations. By-product mutualism cannot be ruled out entirely but, if costs of snake mobbing are relatively low, the available detailed socio-genetic information indicates that kin selection, rather than any of the other proposed mechanisms, is the primary evolutionary force behind the observed cooperative rescue.
捕食者围攻在许多生物分类群中是一种普遍现象，但合作围攻作为一种适应性行为的进化仍存在争议。在此，我们报告了一种夜间单独觅食的灵长类动物——灰鼠狐猴（Microcebus murinus）存在合作捕食者防御行为的证据。几只鼠狐猴围攻了一条抓住一只无关雄性同类的蛇，直到它逃脱。解释合作围攻的进化假说包括：（1）副产品互利共生，即个体在自我防御过程中保护其他个体；（2）互惠互利，即动物相互帮助时比不合作时具有更高的适应性；（3）亲缘选择，即动物只有在通过共同祖先共享基因时才会相互帮助。由于该物种的单独活动，互惠互利似乎最不可能解释我们的观察结果。副产品互利共生不能完全排除，但如果围攻蛇的成本相对较低，现有的详细社会遗传学信息表明，亲缘选择而非任何其他提出的机制，是观察到的合作救援背后的主要进化力量。
