Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats

Abstract If individuals help more those who have previously helped them, stable cooperation may ensue through alternation of roles between donors and recipients. Allogrooming, which is costly to donors and beneficial to recipients, is often exchanged between social partners. Arguably, allogrooming a...

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Autores principales:	Manon K. Schweinfurth, Binia Stieger, Michael Taborsky
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/620f745027c9437196c8db934c0eb5eb
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:620f745027c9437196c8db934c0eb5eb2021-12-02T12:32:12ZExperimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats10.1038/s41598-017-03841-32045-2322https://doaj.org/article/620f745027c9437196c8db934c0eb5eb2017-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03841-3https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract If individuals help more those who have previously helped them, stable cooperation may ensue through alternation of roles between donors and recipients. Allogrooming, which is costly to donors and beneficial to recipients, is often exchanged between social partners. Arguably, allogrooming and allopreening are the most frequently exchanged social services and have been used as a standard model of reciprocal cooperation. However, evidence for the application of reciprocity rules among social partners allogrooming each other hitherto is merely correlational. Here, we tested whether female Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) apply the decision rule characterising direct reciprocity: help someone who has helped you before, by experimentally manipulating both the need for allogrooming and the behavioural response. Furthermore, we checked whether trading of grooming services is influenced by the rank of the social partner. We show that rats groom social partners reciprocally and prefer to do so up the hierarchy, i.e. they groom dominant partners more often than subordinates, while reciprocating with both. This provides experimental evidence that animals render a costly social service by applying reciprocity decision rules when showing a natural hygienic behaviour. The fact that allogrooming is more readily shown up the hierarchy may suggest an appeasing function.Manon K. SchweinfurthBinia StiegerMichael TaborskyNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Manon K. Schweinfurth Binia Stieger Michael Taborsky Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats
description	Abstract If individuals help more those who have previously helped them, stable cooperation may ensue through alternation of roles between donors and recipients. Allogrooming, which is costly to donors and beneficial to recipients, is often exchanged between social partners. Arguably, allogrooming and allopreening are the most frequently exchanged social services and have been used as a standard model of reciprocal cooperation. However, evidence for the application of reciprocity rules among social partners allogrooming each other hitherto is merely correlational. Here, we tested whether female Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) apply the decision rule characterising direct reciprocity: help someone who has helped you before, by experimentally manipulating both the need for allogrooming and the behavioural response. Furthermore, we checked whether trading of grooming services is influenced by the rank of the social partner. We show that rats groom social partners reciprocally and prefer to do so up the hierarchy, i.e. they groom dominant partners more often than subordinates, while reciprocating with both. This provides experimental evidence that animals render a costly social service by applying reciprocity decision rules when showing a natural hygienic behaviour. The fact that allogrooming is more readily shown up the hierarchy may suggest an appeasing function.
format	article
author	Manon K. Schweinfurth Binia Stieger Michael Taborsky
author_facet	Manon K. Schweinfurth Binia Stieger Michael Taborsky
author_sort	Manon K. Schweinfurth
title	Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats
title_short	Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats
title_full	Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats
title_fullStr	Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats
title_full_unstemmed	Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats
title_sort	experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type norway rats
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/620f745027c9437196c8db934c0eb5eb
work_keys_str_mv	AT manonkschweinfurth experimentalevidenceforreciprocityinallogroomingamongwildtypenorwayrats AT biniastieger experimentalevidenceforreciprocityinallogroomingamongwildtypenorwayrats AT michaeltaborsky experimentalevidenceforreciprocityinallogroomingamongwildtypenorwayrats
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Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats

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