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Tamarins: Insights into monogamous and non-monogamous single female social and breeding systems

Abstract:

Tamarins are reported to live in small multimale-multifemale groups characterized by a single breeding female. Here we present information on the composition and genetic relatedness of individuals in 12 wild-trapped groups of Weddell's saddleback tamarins (Saguinus weddelli) from northern Bolivia to determine if groups are best described as nuclear or extended families suggesting social monogamy or whether groups contain several unrelated same sex adults indicative of social polyandry/polygyny. Mean group size was 6.25 including an average of 2.16 adult males (range 1-4) and 2.08 adult females (1-3). No group contained only one adult male and one adult female and 25% of groups contained two parous females. We estimated the genetic relatedness among individuals using 13 polymorphic microsatellite markers. Across the population, mean relatedness was low and not significantly different among adult males versus among adult females, suggesting that both sexes disperse from their natal groups. Adults of both sexes also tended to have close same-sex adult relatives within their groups; relatedness among adult females of the same group averaged 0.31 and among adult males was 0.26. This suggests that tamarins of one or both sexes sometimes delay dispersal and remain as adults in their natal group or that emigration of same-sexed relatives into the same group may be common. Finally, parentage analyses indicated that, whereas the parents of juveniles generally were present in the group, this was not always the case. Based on these data, published reports of the presence of multiple breeding males and occasionally multiple breeding females in the same group, and the fact that less than 10% of groups in the wild contain a single adult male-adult female pair, we argue that social polyandry best characterizes the composition of tamarin groups and that monogamy is not a common mating pattern in Saguinus weddelli or other tamarin species. Am. J. Primatol. 78:298-314, 2016.