Environmental context matters for interpreting species differences in Pan aggression
Authors/Creators
- Surbeck, Martin (Contact person)1
- Cheng, Leveda2
- Clay, Zanna3
- Cathrine, Crockford4
- Deschner, Tobias5
- Engelmann, Jan6
- Furuichi, Takeshi7
- Hohmann, Gottfried8
- Kret, Mariska E.9
- Morgan, Dave10
- Mouginot, Maud11
- Pika, Simone5
- Sanz, Crickette12
- Tennie, Claudio13
- Tokuyama, Nahoko
- Wessling, Erin8
- Wilson, Michael14
- Wittig, Roman4
- Wrangham, Richard15
- Samuni, Liran8
- 1. Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard
- 2. School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews
- 3. Department of Psychology, Durham University
- 4. Institute for Cognitive Sciences, University of Lyon 1
- 5. Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück
- 6. Department of Psychology, University of California Berkeley
-
7.
Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University
- 8. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
- 9. Institute of Psychology , Leiden University
- 10. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes,Chicago
- 11. Department of Anthropology, Boston University
- 12. Department of Anthropology, Washington University in Saint Louis
- 13. Department of Geosciences, University of Tübingen
- 14. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota
- 15. Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
Description
This commentary addresses the findings of Bryon et al. (2026, Science Advances), who use multi‑zoo data on bonobos and chimpanzees to infer species‑typical patterns of aggression under standardized conditions. We argue this inference is problematic for two reasons. First, ecological and social variation in the wild is not noise but relevant context, so flattening food, ranging, intergroup competition, and mating contexts can obscure evolved differences. Second, captivity introduces strong, species‑atypical confounds such as constrained ranging, altered group composition, and active management of aggression, which can systematically affect behavior. We therefore caution against treating zoo‑based comparisons as decisive evidence for evolved species differences and advocate integrating captive with ecologically relevant wild data.
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Comment on Bryon et al 2026.pdf
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Additional details
Additional titles
- Subtitle
- Comment on Bryon et al (2026), Chimpanzees are not more aggressive than bonobos but target sexes differently, Science Advances