The DOI matches its Crossref record; 45 of the 47 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Food sharing in vampire bats: reciprocal help predicts donations more than relatedness or harassment
Open accessAbstract
Common vampire bats often regurgitate food to roost-mates that fail to feed. The original explanation for this costly helping behaviour invoked both direct and indirect fitness benefits. Several authors have since suggested that food sharing is maintained solely by indirect fitness because non-kin food sharing could have resulted from kin recognition errors, indiscriminate altruism within groups, or harassment. To test these alternatives, we examined predictors of food-sharing decisions under controlled conditions of mixed relatedness and equal familiarity. Over a 2 year period, we individually fasted 20 vampire bats ( Desmodus rotundus ) and induced food sharing on 48 days. Surprisingly, donors initiated food sharing more often than recipients, which is inconsistent with harassment. Food received was the best predictor of food given across dyads, and 8.5 times more important than relatedness. Sixty-four per cent of sharing dyads were unrelated, approaching the 67 per cent expected if nepotism was absent. Consistent with social bonding, the food-sharing network was consistent and correlated with mutual allogrooming. Together with past work, these findings support the hypothesis that food sharing in vampire bats provides mutual direct fitness benefits, and is not explained solely by kin selection or harassment.
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“In most species, food sharing occurs between kin, such as parents provisioning their offspring (birds [44], mammals [45,47,49]), or between mating partners (insects [44], birds [43], mammals [45,47,50], humans [51]).”
From Food sharing is linked to urinary oxytocin levels and bonding in related and unrelated wild chimpanzees (2014) · cites this paper as [49]
In the citing paper
“Food sharing between unrelated individuals outside the mating context is rare but has been reported for humans, vampire bats, chimpanzees and bonobos [13,46,48,49,52].”
From Food sharing is linked to urinary oxytocin levels and bonding in related and unrelated wild chimpanzees (2014) · cites this paper as [49]
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Self-citationRandomization, Bootstrap and Monte Carlo Methods in Biology
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- 10.1371/journal.pone.0038791.t006 · DOI
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Metadata
- Authors
- Carter, G. G., & Wilkinson, G. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2013-02-22
- Volume
- 280
- Issue
- 1753
- Pages
- 20122573
- ISSN
- 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
- 0962-8452
- 1471-2954
- PMC
- PMC3574350
- OpenAlex
- W2161526268
- Cited by
- 404
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 54 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 7
- FWCI
- 27.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Commons - University of South Florida (University of South Florida) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Bat Biology and Ecology Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- vampire bats, Desmodus rotundus, food sharing, reciprocal altruism, kin selection, nepotism, relatedness, direct fitness benefits, indirect fitness benefits, allogrooming, social bonding
- MeSH terms
- Altruism, Animals, Chiroptera, Cooperative Behavior, Feeding Behavior, Female, Genotype, Male, Selection, Genetic, Videotape Recording, Microsatellite Repeats
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