Christina Hansen Wheat and the wolf Lemmy. Credit: Peter Kaut
When it comes to showing affection towards people, lots of dogs are naturals. Now a report in the journal Ecology and Evolution exposes that the remarkable capability to reveal accessory behavior towards human caregivers likewise exists in wolves.
The findings were made when researchers at Stockholm University, Sweden, checked 10 wolves and 12 pets in a behavioral test specifically designed to measure accessory behaviors in canids. (Canids are members of the Canidae household of meat-eating animats, that includes domestic pets, wolves, coyotes, foxes, jackals, dingoes, and numerous other extant and extinct dog-like mammals.).
During this test 23-week-old wolves spontaneously discriminated between a familiar individual and a complete stranger simply as well as pets did, and revealed more distance seeking and affiliative habits towards the familiar person. In addition, the existence of the familiar individual functioned as a social tension buffer for the wolves soothing them in a demanding situation.
These discoveries construct on a gradually building up body of evidence opposing the hypothesis that the abilities essential to form attachment with people, emerged in pet dogs just after people domesticated them at least 15,000 years ago.
The wolf pup Hendrix. Credit: Christina Hansen Wheat/Stockholm University.
” We felt that there was a need to completely check this,” states Dr. Christina Hansen Wheat, PhD in Ethology from Stockholm University, Sweden. “Together with earlier studies making important contributions to this question, I think it is now proper to amuse the idea that if variation in human-directed accessory habits exists in wolves, this habits could have been a potential target for early selective pressures put in throughout canine domestication.”.
Dr. Hansen Wheat has an interest in understanding how domestication affects habits. To study this, she and her team raised wolf and pet dog young puppies from the age of 10 days and put them through various behavioral tests. In among those tests, a familiar individual and a stranger take turns in coming in and out of a test space to develop a rather unusual and stressful scenario for the animal. The theory behind the test, initially developed to examine attachment in human infants, is that by producing this unsteady environment attachment habits, such as proximity seeking, will be promoted.
The wolf pup Björk. Credit: Christina Hansen Wheat.
In essence, what the scientists were searching for in this Strange Situation Test was if the wolves and canines might discriminate between the familiar individual and the stranger. That is, did they reveal more love, and spend more time welcoming and in physical contact with the familiar person than the complete stranger? I.e. it has actually not evolved specifically in pets if wolves and pets would do so equally it would point towards this capability not being unique to dogs.
” That was precisely what we saw,” states Dr. Hansen Wheat. “It was really clear that the wolves, as the canines, preferred the familiar individual over the stranger. But what was possibly much more fascinating was that while the pets were not especially affected by the test scenario, the wolves were. They were pacing the test room. Nevertheless, the remarkable thing was that when the familiar person, a hand-raiser that had actually been with the wolves all their lives, returned to the test space the pacing behavior stopped, suggesting that the familiar individual acted as a social stress buffer for the wolves. I do not believe that this has ever been shown to be the case for wolves prior to and this likewise complements the existence of a strong bond in between the animals and the familiar individual.”.
Dr. Hansen Wheat adds that similarities between wolves and canines can inform us something about where the habits we see in our dogs originates from. And, while it might be a surprise to some that wolves can get in touch with an individual in this method, she says in retrospect it likewise makes good sense.
” Wolves showing human-directed accessory might have had a selective benefit in early stages of pet domestication,” she says.
Dr. Hansen Wheat will now continue to work with the information she and her team have gathered over the course of 3 years hand-raising wolves and dogs under similar conditions to discover much more about their behavioral distinctions and resemblances.
Referral: “Human-directed accessory behaviour in wolves recommends standing ancestral variation for human-dog accessory bonds” 20 September 2022, Ecology and Evolution.DOI: 10.1002/ ece3.9299.
This research did not receive any specific grants from funding companies in the general public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
To study this, she and her team raised wolf and pet dog pups from the age of 10 days and put them through numerous behavioral tests. In essence, what the scientists were looking for in this Strange Situation Test was if the wolves and pets might discriminate between the familiar person and the stranger. If wolves and canines would do so equally it would point towards this ability not being unique to dogs, i.e. it has not developed particularly in canines.
What was possibly even more fascinating was that while the dogs were not particularly affected by the test situation, the wolves were. The exceptional thing was that when the familiar person, a hand-raiser that had actually been with the wolves all their lives, re-entered the test room the pacing behavior stopped, indicating that the familiar person acted as a social tension buffer for the wolves.