Review
Biology
Andrew Whiten, Rachel A. Harrison, Nicola McGuigan, Gillian L. Vale, Stuart K. Watson
Summary: This article discusses the collective dimensions of culture and cumulative culture in chimpanzees through three strands of recent research. The research reveals collective innovation through challenging tool use opportunities, changes in technique through unanimous majority decision-making, and the association between social tolerance and success in developing complex tool use. The findings have implications for understanding related studies of humans, other primates, and non-primate species.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Biology
Mike M. Webster
Summary: The article reviews how social learning is not limited to group-living species, but is also observed in non-grouping animals in various behavioral contexts. It further discusses the implications of studying non-grouping species for understanding the evolution and development of social learning, and the functional constraints it may impose on learning opportunities in natural conditions.
BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Alexander Mielke, Anna Preis, Liran Samuni, Jan F. Gogarten, Jack D. Lester, Catherine Crockford, Roman M. Wittig
Summary: The predictability of social interactions is important for assessing social complexity in animal groups. A consistency measure was developed to detect inconsistent interaction types and quantify differences within and between animal groups. The measure successfully identified interaction types with low internal consistency and found differences in consistency within groups, with aggression and dominance interactions being the most consistent.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Gillian L. Vale, Nicola McGuigan, Emily Burdett, Susan P. Lambeth, Amanda Lucas, Bruce Rawlings, Steven J. Schapiro, Stuart K. Watson, Andrew Whiten
Summary: Researchers explored whether chimpanzees have the capacity for innovation and social learning, and their performance in extractive foraging and tool-use. Although chimpanzees showed creativity and flexibility in exploring new tasks, they did not demonstrate evidence of cumulative cultural learning. Communities exhibited richer behavioral repertoires and greater task success compared to chimpanzees in an asocial control condition, but their solution complexity did not exceed that of individual inventions.
EVOLUTION AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR
(2021)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Amy Fultz, Rebekah Lewis, Liam Kelly, Jordan Garbarino
Summary: Chimp Haven is a sanctuary that provides care for retired chimpanzees from biomedical research, rescued from the pet trade or re-homed by other organizations. They use a system of behavioral metrics to guide decision-making and track outcomes for the chimpanzees' welfare. The data is analyzed using various tools such as Google Forms, ZooMonitor, Microsoft Power Bi, Microsoft Excel, and R. These metrics can be a framework for tracking welfare in other sanctuaries and species.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Joel Bray, Joseph T. Feldblum, Ian C. Gilby
Summary: Social bonds in adult male chimpanzees can predict changes in dominance strength, aiding in maintaining or increasing position in the dominance hierarchy. The formation of cooperative coalitions is the most likely mechanism for the observed relationship between strong social bonds and dominance trajectories.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Donald T. Mcknight, Jaren C. Serano, Denise M. Thompson, Day B. Ligon
Summary: This study provides some of the first evidence of group living in freshwater turtles, showing that juvenile Central American river turtles exhibit non-random clustering behavior. This finding expands our understanding of reptile sociality and has implications for conservation efforts.
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Josue Alejandro, Yumi Yamanashi, Kei Nemoto, Fred B. Bercovitch, Michael A. Huffman
Summary: The study found that female pygmy slow lorises are more social than previously thought, preferring close social interactions with conspecifics and having a consistent nesting habit. Housing female pygmy slow lorises in same-sex groups can enhance their social behaviors and improve their well-being.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Jessica R. Deere, Kathryn L. Schaber, Steffen Foerster, Ian C. Gilby, Joseph T. Feldblum, Kimberly VanderWaal, Tiffany M. Wolf, Dominic A. Travis, Jane Raphael, Iddi Lipende, Deus Mjungu, Anne E. Pusey, Elizabeth V. Lonsdorf, Thomas R. Gillespie
Summary: This study investigated the relationship between social behavior and parasite richness in a community of wild chimpanzees. The findings showed that individuals who spent more time with others in the same space had higher parasite richness, while grooming contact did not affect parasite richness. These results contribute to understanding the complex interplay between parasitism and sociality in group-living primates.
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Zoology
Joel Bray, Carson M. Murray, Ian C. Gilby, Margaret A. Stanton
Summary: The study reveals that young male chimpanzees who associate frequently with adult males during infancy tend to have stronger social relationships with them in adulthood. Interestingly, the association rates between young males themselves do not predict the strength of their relationships as adults. These findings highlight the significance of early socialization in the social development of male chimpanzees.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, Sarah E. DeTroy, Stephan P. Kaufhold, Clara Dubois, Sebastian Schutte, Josep Call, Daniel B. M. Haun
Summary: Chimpanzees in the wild exhibit cooperative behavior, with individuals from neighboring communities providing resources to group members at personal cost. The level of prosocial behavior varies across different groups. During a resource-donation experiment, chimpanzees showed an increase in prosocial behavior over time, with more socially tolerant groups being more prosocial.
Article
Biology
T. Gruber, M. Chimento, L. M. Aplin, D. Biro
Summary: Recent studies have shown that animal culture can become more efficient in various contexts, satisfying the criteria of cumulative cultural evolution. However, there is still no consensus on the definition of efficiency, cumulative cultural evolution, or the link between efficiency and complex forms of cumulative cultural evolution unique to humans. To address these issues, this article reviews potential evidence for cumulative cultural evolution in animals, provides a useful definition of efficiency by synthesizing perspectives from animal studies and iterated learning literature, and discusses the factors that affect the informational bottleneck of social transmission. The article concludes that framing cumulative cultural evolution in terms of efficiency sheds new light on complexity, as learnable behaviors are essential for its evolution.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Review
Ecology
Sebastian Stockmaier, Yuko Ulrich, Gregory F. F. Albery, Sylvia Cremer, Patricia C. C. Lopes
Summary: Animals have developed various behavioral defenses to combat socially transmitted parasites, which can have significant impacts on the social group as a whole. These defenses include avoidance, resistance, and tolerance behaviors, and their expression and evolution are influenced by factors such as social complexity, group composition, and interdependent social relationships.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Anthony Formaux, Dany Paleressompoulle, Joel Fagot, Nicolas Claidiere
Summary: Conventions are an important aspect of human social and cultural behavior, and they may also play a crucial role in animal societies. However, our understanding of non-human conventions is limited. Through experimentation, it has been found that conventions can readily emerge in non-human primates and exhibit similar fundamental properties as human conventions.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Naruki Morimura
Summary: The study found that wild chimpanzees exhibit dynamic ranging patterns with larger range sizes, while sanctuary chimpanzees show static ranging patterns with smaller ranges. The ratio of time-of-day range to day range is a suitable quantitative index of behavioral freedom in chimpanzees.
CONSERVATION SCIENCE AND PRACTICE
(2021)