Department of Biological Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, 98926, United States of America.
School of Life Sciences, Anhui University, Hefei, P.R. China.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 1;7(1):7082. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-07067-1.
One of the most fundamental questions in behavioural biology is why societies can persist for a long period of time. While researchers in animal behaviour have been hindered by a lack of an aggregate measure (such as social mobility) to quantify the dynamics of animal societies, researchers in social sciences have been challenged by the complexity and diversity of human societies. As a result, direct empirical evidence is still lacking for the hypothesized causal relationship between social mobility and social stability. Here we attempt to fill the void by examining a much simpler society in the Tibetan macaque (Macaca thibetana), which we have tracked for 30 consecutive years. By testing two group-level hypotheses based on benefit-cost analysis and social stratification, we show the first quantitative evidence that an annual 2-to-1 stay/change ratio in the hierarchy with a 3-to-1 upward/downward ratio in intragenerational social mobility provides a substantive expected benefit for adult members to stay in the group and wait for their chances to advance. Furthermore, using a Markov transition matrix constructed from empirical data, we demonstrate that the 3-to-1 upward/downward ratio could lead to long-term structural stability in Tibetan macaque society.
行为生物学中最基本的问题之一是为什么社会可以长时间存在。虽然动物行为研究人员受到缺乏衡量动物社会动态的综合指标（如社会流动性）的阻碍，但社会科学研究人员也面临着人类社会的复杂性和多样性的挑战。因此，社会流动性和社会稳定性之间假设的因果关系仍然缺乏直接的经验证据。在这里，我们试图通过研究已经连续跟踪了 30 年的藏猕猴（Macaca thibetana）来填补这一空白。通过检验基于成本效益分析和社会分层的两个群体水平假设，我们首次提供了定量证据，表明等级制度中每年 2 比 1 的留守/变动比率和代际内 3 比 1 的上升/下降比率为成年成员留在群体中并等待晋升机会提供了实质性的预期收益。此外，我们使用从经验数据构建的马尔可夫转移矩阵，证明了 3 比 1 的上升/下降比率可以导致藏猕猴社会的长期结构稳定性。
