Subordination signals improve the quality of social relationships in Verreaux's Sifaka: Implications for the evolution of power structures and social complexity

Objectives: Unidirectional dominance-related signals can be used to communicate submission (an immediate behavioral response) or subordination (the status of an established relationship). Subordination signals are defined as emitted during peaceful interactions and are hypothesized to be critical for the evolution of social complexity and robust power structures because they reduce uncertainty in social relationships. The chatter vocalization in Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) is a unidirectional submissive signal. I tested the hypothesis that chatter vocalizations can signal subordination and thereby reduce agonism in a dyad.

Materials and methods: I examined 780 chatters from 18 dyads collected over 881 observation hours on four groups of sifaka in Kirindy Forest, Madagascar.

Results: Sifaka emitted 63% of chatters in the peaceful context. Peaceful chatters significantly predicted grooming rate, fighting rate, reconciliation, and proportion of wins in a dyad but did not predict time in proximity. Dyad-type significantly predicted the frequency of peaceful chatters, with intrasexual dyads exhibiting chatters in peaceful contexts more often than intersexual dyads.

Discussion: Sifaka communicate both submission and subordination with chatter vocalizations. Subordination signaling increased tolerance and affiliation. It reduced conflicts and the probability dominant individuals usurped resources. Moreover, intrasexual power may be more institutionalized than intersexual power in sifaka. The finding of complex and cognitively demanding social communication in a lemur with low levels of cooperation (1) challenges previous assumptions that the evolution of social complexity is dependent on frequent triadic interactions and high levels of cooperation, and (2) highlights the need for taxonomic diversity in studies of social complexity.