STUDY REVEALS HOW FEMALE BONOBOS STICK TOGETHER TO MAINTAIN THEIR POWER
Males lead numerous animal groups in the wild. Because of this, scientists have long been perplexed by animals that are dominated by females, such as elephants, bees, and, most recently, bonobos. According to a recent study, why do female bonobos dominate the population even though males are significantly larger, noisier, and more powerful? It turns out that solidarity plays a big role in the arrangement.
To find out exactly how female bonobos exerted their authority over males, researchers intensively monitored six wild bonobo populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for almost thirty years, from 1993 to 2021. According to the findings of the resulting study, which was released on April 24 in Communications Biology, women would form groups to uphold power.
“We have found what everybody already knows—that when you work together, you’re more successful and you gain power,” Martin Surbeck, a behavioural ecologist at Harvard University and lead author of the study, told National Geographic.
Female bonobos usually outrank males in their social hierarchies, have preferential access to food resources, and choose when and with whom to mate, in contrast to many other species, including chimpanzees. According to the study, female bonobos organise into coalitions of three to five people in order to maintain these rights. In order to obtain power, the coalitions would jointly attack male bonobos in 85% of situations, and female bonobos won 61% of these battles.
“To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that female solidarity can invert the male-biased power structure that is typical of many mammal societies,” Surbeck said. “It’s exciting to find that females can actively elevate their social status by supporting each other.”
Despite their excitement, these findings were unexpected. Surbeck and his colleagues examined several theories before deciphering their data sets, including the idea that men are unable to monopolise mating opportunities due to hidden ovulation. The strong links and collaboration within these coalitions are surprising because adult females must relocate to mate, which forces them to join communities in which they were not raised.
The head of the LuiKotale bonobo research station for 30 years, Barbara Fruth, describes the female coalitions as "ferocious." The bonobos can pursue men up trees, scream so loudly that "you have to muffle your ears," and occasionally injure people fatally, especially if chimps are in danger, according to Fruth.
“You know why these males don’t try to overstep boundaries,” Fruth added.
In bonobo societies, females outrank 70% of males on average, but their dominance is by no means the rule. Female dominance varied in each population along a spectrum, with coalitions offering just one mechanism to drive empowerment.
“It’s more accurate to say that in bonobo societies, females enjoy high status rather than unchallenged dominance,” Fruth said.
In any case, bonobos, one of our closest living cousins, do shed light on how social hierarchies have developed.
In National Geographic, Surbeck went on, "[Our findings] tell us that male supremacy and patriarchy is not inherently inevitable." This supports the notion that both humans and apes exhibit highly inventive and adaptable behaviour. I believe we may say that it gives us some hope, if nothing else.
"This study could provide insight into how women could build power to better protect ourselves from male violence—by forming and maintaining coalitions, or alliances, with one another, just like our bonobo cousins," wrote Laura Simone Lewis, a biological anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley who was not involved in the study, in the Washington Post.
Naturally, scientists are excited to learn more about bonobos and the intricacy of their societies in the wake of this study. But to do this, the primates need to be safeguarded against habitat and climatic change.
“Bonobos are an endangered species,” Surbeck told The New York Times. “As our closest living relatives, they help us look into our past. If we lose them, we lose a mirror for humanity.”
