Older Barbary macaques show limited capacity for self-regulation to avoid hazardous social interactions.

According to the Strength-and-Vulnerability-Integration (SAVI) model, older people are more motivated to avoid negative affect and high arousal than younger people. To explore the biological roots of this effect, we investigate communicative interactions and social information processing in Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) living at 'La Forêt des Singes' in Rocamadour, France. The study combines an analysis of the production of (N = 8185 signals, 84 signallers) and responses to communicative signals (N = 3672 events, 84 receivers) with a field experiment (N = 166 trials, 45 subjects). Here we show that older monkeys are not more likely to specifically ignore negative social information or to employ avoidance strategies in stressful situations, although they are overall less sociable. We suggest that the monkeys have only a limited capacity for self-regulation within social interactions and rather rely on general avoidance strategies to decrease the risk of potentially hazardous social interactions.

Social aging in male and female Barbary macaques.

Aging brings about notable changes in sociality, with an increasing focus on essential partners in both humans and nonhuman primates. Several studies have shown that older nonhuman primates have fewer social partners and shift their types of interactions. The majority of these studies, however, involved only female individuals. Much less is known about the trajectory of social aging in males. We collected 2180 h of focal observation data in a large age-heterogeneous sample of 34 male and 50 female Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus; age range 5-30 years) living in two social groups at the outdoor enclosure at La Forêt des Singes in Rocamadour (France). To track age-related changes in social engagement of both sexes, we used classical behavioral and social network analysis to measure age-related variation in the number of partners, the frequency of affiliative interactions, and the position in the social network (eigenvector centrality and local clustering coefficient). We found that females were more central in most social network metrics than males, that is, had more social partners and were more engaged in affiliative interactions than males. We did not find notable sex differences with age: both sexes showed a similar decline in social activity and energy-demanding activities like jumping or running. Our results thereby extend our knowledge of older nonhuman primates' social life and emphasize that age can have a similar impact on female and male social behavior.

Differential ageing trajectories in motivation, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility in Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus).

Across the lifespan, the performance in problem-solving tasks varies strongly, owing to age-related variation in cognitive abilities as well as the motivation to engage in a task. Non-human primates provide an evolutionary perspective on human cognitive and motivational ageing, as they lack an insight into their own limited lifetime, and ageing trajectories are not affected by customs and societal norms. To test age-related variation in inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and persistence, we presented Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus), living at La Forêt des Singes in Rocamadour (France), with three problem-solving tasks. We conducted 297 trials with 143 subjects aged 2-30 years. We found no effect of age on success and latency to succeed in the inhibitory control task. In the cognitive flexibility task, 21 out of 99 monkeys were able to switch their strategy, but there was no evidence for an effect of age. Yet, the persistence in the motivation task as well as the overall likelihood to participate in any of the tasks declined with increasing age. These results suggest that motivation declines earlier than the cognitive abilities assessed in this study, corroborating the notion that non-human primates and humans show similar changes in motivation in old age. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution of the primate ageing process'.

Age-dependent change of coalitionary strategy in male Barbary macaques.

Inter- and intra-specific variation in the propensity to form coalitions has been explained by variation in the availability of suitable partners, distribution of fighting ability, coalition profitability, and costs of coordination. Male coalition formation can be an alternative reproductive strategy to one-on-one competition to maximize male reproductive success. Here we focus on age as a state variable to explain within-group variation in individual propensity to form coalitions against other group members. We specifically test the prediction that males conditionally switch from a solo strategy for achievement of high mating success to a cooperative strategy after reaching post-prime age in male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus). We combined new observations with data collected in 2006 and 2008 on the same individuals from one captive group living in semi-natural conditions at Affenberg Salem, Germany, and found that in all years males between 5 and 13 years formed significantly fewer coalitions than males 14 years and older (post-prime). More importantly, we found those males that aged into the post-prime phase to have switched their reproductive strategy and to form significantly more coalitions in 2014 compared to 2008. These first longitudinal data together with earlier cross-sectional analyses in this and other primate species suggest that group-level measures of coalition propensity may be strongly affected by the age composition of groups and that male coalition formation can be a conditional reproductive strategy.