Behavioral syndromes are associated with social plasticity and competence in a wild primate

Tkaczynski, PJ ORCID: 0000-0003-3207-2132, Campbell, LAD, MacLarnon, A, Majolo, B, Ross, C and Lehmann, J (2025) Behavioral syndromes are associated with social plasticity and competence in a wild primate. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 79 (128). ISSN 0340-5443

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Abstract

The ability to optimize social behavior to varying socioecological circumstances has been termed “social competence” and relies on behavioral plasticity. Behavioral syndromes, i.e. consistent individual differences in intraindividual correlations among behavioral traits, appear to be a constraint on social competence, yet studies exploring this have largely been limited to experimental laboratory settings. Here, we tested the importance of behavioral syndromes to social competence in wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus), an endangered primate with established links between positive social relationships and survival. We studied two groups (n = 27 individuals) in which behavioral syndrome phenotypes were established in a previous study. Individuals with lower scores for the “excitable” phenotype (roughly equivalent to the “shy-bold” axis in other studies) showed greater plasticity compared to more “excitable” (i.e., “bolder”) individuals in affiliative responses to the immediate social environment, being more likely to initiate grooming with larger numbers of conspecific bystanders present. Less excitable individuals increased their grooming social network connectivity to a greater degree compared to more excitable individuals in periods of higher anthropogenic pressure. During colder weather, less excitable individuals concentrated their grooming network into fewer ties, whereas more excitable individuals slightly increased their number of connections. Any changes in network connectivity in relation to socioecology were small, reflecting the fact that stability in social network position is a common phenomenon in various taxa. Overall, we show that behavioral syndrome phenotypes influence plasticity in affiliative behavior and thus may be a key factor in individual responses to the rapidly changing socioecologies of the Anthropocene.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Personality; Plasticity; Sociality; Fitness; Networks; 3109 Zoology; 31 Biological Sciences; Social Determinants of Health; Basic Behavioral and Social Science; Behavioral and Social Science; Mental Health; 05 Environmental Sciences; 06 Biological Sciences; 07 Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences; Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology; 30 Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences; 31 Biological sciences; 41 Environmental sciences
Subjects:	Q Science > QL Zoology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Divisions:	Biological and Environmental Sciences (from Sep 19)
Publisher:	Springer
Date of acceptance:	5 November 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	14 July 2026
Date Deposited:	14 Jul 2026 09:55
Last Modified:	14 Jul 2026 09:55
DOI or ID number:	10.1007/s00265-025-03670-9
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29005

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