Both genetic and social inheritance influence female aggressive and submissive behavior in a wild primate

In wild female baboons, heritable components exist for both aggression and submission, with heritability of aggression at h2=0.21 and submission at h2=0.09-0.11.

• Why it matters: Resource-related agonistic behavior is shaped by social relationships, but the relative roles of genetic inheritance versus social inheritance in wild primates remain unclear.
• What they did: Using a quantitative genetics framework on wild female baboons, the study estimated heritability for individual and dyadic aggression/submission with a multi-matrix model that included both additive genetic and social status similarity matrices.
• The result: Social inheritance substantially contributes, especially to submissive behavior, while dyadic patterns show aggressor-genotype effects for aggression and partner-genotype effects for submission, plus negative genetic correlations between dyadic aggression/submission and between submissive behavior and eliciting submissive behavior.

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