Off topic, bonobos

[Keith Henson]

I have been puzzled for about 20 years about why chimps and bonobos
are so different. I recently ran into an article that looks like it
explains the difference.

It's not hard to account for the violent hostility between neighboring
chimp groups, territorial defense of resources is widespread. The
mystery is why bonobos are not territorial. It turns out that they
live in an area that is surrounded by tsetse flies. It looks like any
growth in the bonobo population causes them to expand into areas where
sleeping sickness kills them.

Since bonobos never pushed the environmental limits, there was no
genetic advantage in fighting so they never evolved to fight other
groups. Counterevidence would change my thoughts on this, but I
strongly suspect it is the right answer.

This led to speculations about the most remote group of humans, the
Khoesan. They were separated from the rest of the human race for
something around 100,000 years. I suspect that they missed the
selection for war traits that the rest of the race experienced. The
reason seems to be similar to bonobos. The Khoesan have (or had) an
extremely low fertility rate so they never pushed the environmental
limits, and, like the bonobos, had no reason to fight.

These were side points to an argument about how humans have been
selected for war. The model for that depends on the practice of
taking the young women of a defeated enemy for wives.

If someone wants a copy of the paper I wrote, ask by email.

Keith

[Nick Nielsen]

A more important explanation is that the Bonobos inhabit a small region of forest that happens to be free of Bonobo predators. Outside of this naturally occurring refuge, they would not survive in any competition elsewhere in the wild. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, have predators, and consequently they have learned to defend themselves. Put a Bonobo in a chimp area and it would be torn to shreds. When the Bonobos' refuge eventually is penetrated by predators (which could include chimps), the Bonobos will go extinct.

Bonobos used to be called "dwarf chimpanzees" or "pygmy chimpanzees" because they are smaller (and weaker) than other chimpanzees. Their temporary respite from fate is an historical accident that we happen to be around to document. I suspect the dwarfism is an odd instance of "island dwarfism" that occurs because their naturally occurring refuge is effectively an island from predators that they cannot leave on pain of death.

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[Roger Arnold]

I think the concept of "not pushing the environmental limits" needs clarification. If the population is confined to a small area for some reason, one might think that competition for limited resources would be more intense, not less. There has to be something else going on. Something that renders competition for resources unimportant as a limiting factor for population.

The tsetse fly hypothesis could perhaps work. Not by confining the population to a limited area, however. It would likely have more to do with predation. Predators -- including infectious microorganisms -- adapt to specific prey species. If the population density of a species is low, then it's a poor target for predation. Groups prone to growth to the point that war is adaptive become attractive prey.

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 4:59 PM Keith Henson <hkeith...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 5:13 PM Phil Gossett <cphilg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If bonobos are limited by sleeping sickness, wouldn't there be enhanced competition for usable area, and thus more motivation for conflict?

If bonobos could detect flies with sleeping sickness you would be
right. However, pending investigation, I don't think they can. So
population expansion draws them into areas where they die.

Keith

> - Phil

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[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 5:09 PM Nick Nielsen <john.n....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A more important explanation is that the Bonobos inhabit a small region of forest that happens to be free of Bonobo predators.

That's not the case.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33950405/

Keith

[John K. Strickland, Jr.]

Remember that bonobos are a different species than chimps, so there is no interbreeding.
To fully understand their differences we would have to know how they speciated.

What would happen if we could wipe out the flies with a program similar to the screw worm program based on the sterile male release method, that eradicated them in the US in 1966.
The protected area has now advanced south to Panama.
If the Bonobo range then expanded, it would affect the surrounding farms and could increase conflict with villages.

John S

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[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 7:58 PM John K. Strickland, Jr.
<jkst...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Remember that bonobos are a different species than chimps, so there is no interbreeding.
> To fully understand their differences we would have to know how they speciated.

That's not exactly the case. Chimp genetics show a couple of
ingressions over the last million from Bonobos, somewhat like our
genes show ingression from Neanderthals.

Also, if you look around, there is a report of a bonobo male mating
with some chimp females and producing young.

> What would happen if we could wipe out the flies with a program similar to the screw worm program based on the sterile male release method, that eradicated them in the US in 1966.

This strikes me as politically unlikely. If you were going to do it,
it would need to involve a large fraction of Africa or the flies would
just migrate back

> The protected area has now advanced south to Panama.
> If the Bonobo range then expanded, it would affect the surrounding farms and could increase conflict with villages.

If you had enough time, wiping out sleeping sickness should eventually
cause the bonobo population to expand to the point they were
resource-limited. If you run this experiment long enough (half a
million years?) you might get bonobos that defend territory just like
chimps.

I am not that patient.

Keith

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 6:19 PM Roger Arnold <silver...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think the concept of "not pushing the environmental limits" needs clarification. If the population is confined to a small area for some reason, one might think that competition for limited resources would be more intense, not less. There has to be something else going on. Something that renders competition for resources unimportant as a limiting factor for population.

For bonobos, there is nothing that confines them. But when they stray
into areas with sleeping sickness, they just die. That's what I think
keeps the population down. The behavior that follows is due to it not
being genetically rewarding to fight for resources, whereas it is for
Chimps (and humans).

> The tsetse fly hypothesis could perhaps work. Not by confining the population to a limited area, however. It would likely have more to do with predation. Predators -- including infectious microorganisms -- adapt to specific prey species.

The flies and the disease are generalists. Cattle are the main hosts,
but they made big parts of Africa uninhabitable for people (and I
presume bonobos).

> If the population density of a species is low, then it's a poor target for predation. Groups prone to growth to the point that war is adaptive become attractive prey.

Groups that don't fight wars do very poorly when invaded by those who
do. Why the khoesan have such low fertility is a mystery. They have
in the last generation or so been forced into a sedentary lifestyle.
It will be very interesting if I can find data on recent fertility
rates. Having to carry children when they shift camp was postulated
to be one of the reasons for the long interbirth interval (5 years).

This might be considered to be a recapitulation of what happened when
a large part of the human race became sedentary agriculturalists. Of
course, the population quickly grew to eat all the food farmers could
grow. The only mathematical way I can see to have a high birth rate
and a long-term stable population is to burn off the excess with wars.

There was one population in South America where 60% of the deaths were
from wars.

Keith

[Paul Werbos]

One of the classics on my bookshelf is e.o. Wilson's sociobiology. Whatever the limitations and caveats, it was a seminal piece of work which we should never forget.

Of the many issues... K versus r, growth oriented versus competition oriented niches is certainly part of the story. Wittfogel's books on hydraulic society fit. 

But humans have entered a radically different ecological niche. May's seminal classic on stability and complexity in model ecosystems warns us... Such a species is likely to go extinct unless... it makes radical adaptations. 

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[John K. Strickland, Jr.]

>There was one population in South America where 60% of the deaths were from wars.

This could have been the Bantu agriculturalists, who needed defendable land to grow food.
Shaka Zulu was the most well-known of them.

John S


-----Original Message-----
From: power-satell...@googlegroups.com [mailto:power-satell...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Keith Henson
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2023 12:16 AM
To: Roger Arnold <silver...@gmail.com>
Cc: Power Satellite Economics <power-satell...@googlegroups.com>; Inventor's Lunch <invento...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Off topic, bonobos

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[Keith Henson]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 3:00 PM John K. Strickland, Jr.
<jkst...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >There was one population in South America where 60% of the deaths were from wars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jivaroan_peoples#/media/File:War_deaths_caused_by_warfare.svg

> This could have been the Bantu agriculturalists, who needed defendable land to grow food.
> Shaka Zulu was the most well-known of them.

In the long run, a population cannot grow larger than the food supply.
Thus whatever reproductive rate is in excess of replacement has to die
from disease or war.

Keith