title: Lemur behaviour informs the evolution of social monogamy.
abstract: Recent comparative analyses reached contradictory conclusions about the evolutionary origins of social monogamy in primates and other mammals, but they ignored variation in social bond quality between pair-partners. Recent field studies of Malagasy primates (lemurs) with variable intersexual bonds indicate independent evolutionary transitions to pair-living from solitary and group-living ancestors, respectively, as well as four cumulative steps in evolutionary transitions from a solitary life style to pair-living that resolve some contradictory results of previous studies.
authors.affiliation: Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit, German Primate Centre, Göttingen, Germany; Department Sociobiology/Anthropology, University of Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany. Electronic address: pkappel@gwdg.de.
authors.forename: Peter M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Kappeler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005260:Female; D007900:Lemur / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: monogamy; primates; social evolution