The evolution of the adolescent growth spurt: Urinary biomarkers of bone turnover in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Life history theory addresses how organisms balance development and reproduction. Mammals usually invest considerable energy into growth in infancy, and they do so incrementally less until reaching adult body size, when they shift energy to reproduction. Humans are unusual in having a long adolescence when energy is invested in both reproduction and growth, including rapid skeletal growth around puberty. Although many primates, especially in captivity, experience accelerated growth in mass around puberty, it remains unclear whether this represents skeletal growth. Without data on skeletal growth in nonhuman primates, anthropologists have often assumed the adolescent growth spurt is uniquely human, and hypotheses for its evolution have focused on other uniquely human traits. The lack of data is largely due to methodological difficulties of assessing skeletal growth in wild primates. Here, we use two urinary markers of bone turnover-osteocalcin and collagen-to study skeletal growth in a large, cross-sectional sample of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda. For both bone turnover markers, we found a nonlinear effect of age, which was largely driven by males. For male chimpanzees, values for osteocalcin and collagen peaked at age 9.4 years and 10.8 years, respectively, which corresponds to early and middle adolescence. Notably, collagen values increased from 4.5 to 9 years, suggesting faster growth during early adolescence compared to late infancy. Biomarker levels plateaued at 20 years in both sexes, suggesting skeletal growth continues until then. Additional data, notably on females and infants of both sexes, are needed, as are longitudinal samples. However, our cross-sectional analysis suggests an adolescent growth spurt in the skeleton of chimpanzees, especially for males. Biologists should avoid claiming that the adolescent growth spurt is uniquely human, and hypotheses for the patterns of human growth should consider variation in our primate relatives.

A preliminary analysis of wound care and other-regarding behavior in wild chimpanzees at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Caring for others is a key feature of human behavior. Mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, and other group members provide care in the form of provisioning, protection, and first aid. To what extent is other-regarding behavior present in our primate relatives? Here we describe an unusual incident of other-regarding behavior toward an injured juvenile female chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Ngogo in Kibale National Park, Uganda. After the juvenile received a mild head wound from an adult female, several adolescent and juvenile chimpanzees gathered to touch, lick, and peer at the wound. One adolescent male wiped a leaf across the cut. Another adolescent male later groomed the injured female and briefly carried her. Across a 5-year period, we observed only three other instances of other-directed wound care in chimpanzees, occurring in 4% (4/100) of cases in which we observed individuals with fresh wounds, and 57 other instances of allomaternal carrying. Despite the infrequency of such behaviors, our study adds another chimpanzee field site to the list of those where other-directed wound care has been observed. Observations from wild chimpanzees provide insight into empathy and may inform our understanding of the evolution of other-regarding behavior in humans.

Uniting against a common enemy: Perceived outgroup threat elicits ingroup cohesion in chimpanzees.

Outgroup threat has been identified as an important driver of ingroup cohesion in humans, but the evolutionary origin of such a relationship is unclear. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in the wild are notably aggressive towards outgroup members but coordinate complex behaviors with many individuals in group hunting and border patrols. One hypothesis claims that these behaviors evolve alongside one another, where outgroup threat selects for ingroup cohesion and group coordination. To test this hypothesis, 5 groups of chimpanzees (N = 29 individuals) were observed after hearing either pant-hoots of unfamiliar wild chimpanzees or control crow vocalizations both in their typical daily environment and in a context of induced feeding competition. We observed a behavioral pattern that was consistent both with increased stress and vigilance (self-directed behaviors increased, play decreased, rest decreased) and increased ingroup cohesion (interindividual proximity decreased, aggression over food decreased, and play during feeding competition increased). These results support the hypothesis that outgroup threat elicits ingroup tolerance in chimpanzees. This suggests that in chimpanzees, like humans, competition between groups fosters group cohesion.