Bonobos use social bonding and sexual behavior to resolve conflict, maintaining low-aggression societies that demonstrate the welfare benefits of female-dominant social structures.
Bonobo social structures demonstrate that high-welfare primate communities are achievable through evolved social mechanisms. However, habitat loss and hunting have reduced bonobo populations to endangered status, threatening not just individuals but the social structures that make bonobo life low-stress. Groups disrupted by human pressure lose the female coalition dynamics that regulate aggression.