American Journal of Primatology最新文献

{"title":"Enhancing Student Comprehension of Paternity Assignment in Molecular Primatology: A Pilot Study Using a Shiny Web Application in Kenya","authors":"David K. Mwaura,&nbsp;Jordan A. Anderson,&nbsp;Daniel M. Kiboi,&nbsp;Mercy Y. Akinyi,&nbsp;Jenny Tung","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70024","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajp.70024","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Kinship is a major determinant of affiliative and mating behavior in primates. In field studies, identifying kin typically relies in part on genetic analysis, especially for discriminating paternal relationships. Such analyses assume knowledge of Mendelian inheritance, genotyping technologies, and basic statistical inference. Consequently, they can be difficult for students to grasp, particularly through traditional lecture formats. Here, we investigate whether integrating an additional active learning approach—interaction with <i>DadApp</i>, an application built using the R package <i>Shiny</i> that implements a popular paternity inference approach in an accessible graphical user interface—improves student understanding of genetic kinship analysis in molecular primatology. We do so in the context of a nontraditional learning environment in Kenya, a developing nation in which students have limited access to technology, and where the efficacy of educational Shiny apps has never been assessed. Twenty-eight (28) participants with diverse educational backgrounds attended an introductory lecture on genetics and paternity inference, completed a pre-test, interacted with <i>DadApp</i> via a structured set of exercises and questions, and then completed a post-test and survey about their experience and subjective understanding. Post-test scores significantly improved relative to pre-test scores (<i>p</i> = 3.75 × 10⁻⁶), indicating enhanced learning outcomes. Further, student interest and confidence in the subject matter significantly increased after the practical session with <i>DadApp</i>. Our results suggest that Shiny web app-based active learning approaches have potential benefits in communicating complex topics in molecular primatology, including in resource-limited settings where such methods have not yet experienced high penetrance.</p>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajp.70024","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143676563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Factors Affecting the Diet and Activity Budget of Wild Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana)","authors":"Yangkai Ru,&nbsp;Jilai Zhao,&nbsp;Paul A. Garber,&nbsp;Wenbo Li,&nbsp;Huijuan Pan","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70026","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Behavioral and dietary flexibility allow primates to effectively exploit resources that fluctuate in time and space. Here we examined monthly variation in the diet and activity budget of a wild nonprovisioned group of Tibetan macaques inhabiting Mt. Huangshan, China. From October 2022 to September 2023, we recorded the behavior of a group of wild macaques and collected data on food availability, temperature, rainfall, and day length. We found that over a 12-month period, the Tibetan macaques fed on 109 plant species. The main food types consumed were fruits (54.5%), leaves (24.3%), seeds (7.7%), stems (6.5%), flowers (4.0%), and buds (2.5%). Tibetan macaques were found to target fruits as a main resource during months in which fruits were most abundant. During months when fruits were scarce, they increased their consumption of leaves, seeds, and stems. The top three plant species each month accounted for 70.7% of total feeding time indicating that their foraging effort focused on a small number of highly productive plant species each month. The Tibetan macaque daily activity budget was dominated by feeding (3.98 h or 33.7%) and resting (3.81 h or 32.8%), followed by traveling (2.40 h or 20.9%) and socializing (1.45 h or 12.6%). When time spent feeding on leaves increased, the Tibetan macaques experienced a significant increase in time spent resting and a significant decrease in time spent feeding. In addition, during the months of December and January, pine seeds were found to be an important food for Tibetan macaques. It is possible that increasing lipid consumption during the cold winter months serves to offset the additional costs of thermoregulation. Our results indicate that Tibetan macaques flexibly adjusted their diet and activity patterns in response to monthly variation in temperature, rainfall, and food availability across a range of forest types in east-central China.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143645726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing the Sociodemographic Factors Associated With Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex Infection Among Free-Ranging Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Thailand","authors":"Nalina Aiempichitkijkarn,&nbsp;Suchinda Malaivijitnond,&nbsp;Suthirote Meesawat,&nbsp;Krishna N. Balasubramaniam,&nbsp;Brenda McCowan","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70023","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The threat of disease transmission at the intersection of human-wildlife interfaces underscores the urgent need for detailed studies on the transmission of human-borne pathogens across species, especially among nonhuman primates in urban areas. This research focuses on the social and demographic determinants of <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> complex (MTBC) infection in free-ranging long-tailed macaques (<i>Macaca fascicularis</i>) in Thailand. Behavioral observations and noninvasive biological specimens (freshly defecated feces and rope-baited oral samples) were collected from 98 long-tailed macaques living in Wat Khao Thamon, southern Thailand, between August 2021 and February 2022. We detected the MTBC antigen using IS<i>6110</i> nested-PCR method in 11 out of 98 monkeys (11.22%). Logistic GLMs revealed that the risk of MTBC acquisition was higher among macaques with frequent human-macaque interactions, whereas increased social grooming of conspecifics showed a nonsignificant trend toward reducing the risk. Our findings suggest that anthropogenic exposure increases the risk of MTBC infection among macaques, but this risk may be mitigated (socially buffered) by increased within-group affiliative interactions. More generally, the potential for increased disease prevalence in wildlife with frequent human interactions or reduced social buffering highlights the need to consider animal socio-demography when developing strategies to understand and prevent the transmission of diseases between humans and wildlife.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143639224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rare Long-Term Data Reveal the Seasonal Dietary Plasticity of Mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) in Response to Fruiting Tree Phenology","authors":"Joshua Bauld,&nbsp;David Lehmann,&nbsp;Luc F. Bussière,&nbsp;Emma R. Bush,&nbsp;Edmond Dimoto,&nbsp;Jean-Thoussaint Dikangadissi,&nbsp;Tharcisse Ukizintambara,&nbsp;Elizabeth C. White,&nbsp;Jason Newton,&nbsp;Isabel L. Jones,&nbsp;Lee J. T. White,&nbsp;Ruth Musgrave,&nbsp;Katharine A. Abernethy","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70012","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Understanding primate dietary plasticity provides insights into trait evolution and resilience to environmental change. Here, we investigate the feeding ecology of mandrills (<i>Mandrillus sphinx</i>), a species that forms groups of close to 1000 individuals, which presumably impacts feeding ecology by creating exceptionally high feeding competition. Mandrills are also threatened by habitat loss and climate change, and a full understanding of their dietary plasticity is essential to ongoing conservation efforts. Evidence suggests that mandrills are generalist feeders and consume a wide variety of resources to compensate for shortfalls in fruit availability. However, a lack of long-term data on fruit production within the mandrill geographic range means that it is unknown whether the flexible feeding strategies observed previously are stable over multiple years. We combined two rare data sets comprising 8 years of fecal collection and fruit availability to assess the dietary flexibility of mandrills in Lopé National Park, Gabon. We found fruit to be the most frequently consumed resource and fruit consumption covaried positively with fruit availability, peaking during periods of fruit abundance. Mandrill dietary diversity increased during periods of fruit scarcity, through greater consumption of animal prey, leaves, seeds, and other plant fibers. These results demonstrate that mandrills are primarily frugivorous, but that they are also highly flexible feeders, able to respond to temporal variation in fruit production over several annual cycles. In addition, we found that mandrills varied in the extent to which they preferred different fruit taxa. Lipid-rich oil palm (<i>Elaeis guineensis</i>) fruits were by far the most frequently consumed resource and may constitute a staple resource for mandrills in the study site. Our multiyear study provides robust evidence for generalist feeding behavior by mandrills, which may be driven by extreme group sizes or past environmental fluctuations and provide resilience to future environmental change.</p>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajp.70012","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143638650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the Utility of the Gut Microbiome as a Longitudinal Health Monitoring Tool in Sanctuary Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)","authors":"Katherine R. Amato,&nbsp;Benjamin R. Lake,&nbsp;Samuel Ozminkowski,&nbsp;Hongmei Jiang,&nbsp;Madelyn Moy,&nbsp;Maria Luisa Savo Sardaro,&nbsp;Amy Fultz,&nbsp;Lydia M. Hopper","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70004","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The primary goal of captive primate management is to ensure optimal health and welfare of the animals in our care. Given that the gut microbiome interacts closely with host metabolism, immunity, and even cognition, it represents a potentially powerful tool for identifying subtle changes in health status across a range of body systems simultaneously. However, thus far, it has not been widely tested or implemented as a monitoring tool. In this study, we used longitudinal microbiome sampling of newly arrived chimpanzees at Chimp Haven to explore the feasibility of using the gut microbiome as a health and welfare biomarker in a sanctuary environment. We also tested the hypothesis that a transition to a new living environment, and integration into new social groupings, would result in temporal changes in chimpanzee gut microbiome composition. The collection of longitudinal microbiome data at Chimp Haven was feasible, and it revealed temporal shifts that were unique to each individual and, in some cases, correlated to other known impacts on health and behavior. We found limited evidence for microbial change over time after arrival at Chimp Haven that was consistent across individuals. In contrast, social group and enclosure, and to a lesser extent, age and sex, were associated with differences in gut microbiome composition. Microbiome composition was also associated with overall health status categories. However, many of the effects we detected were most apparent when using longitudinal data, as opposed to single time point samples. Additionally, we found important effects of technical factors, specifically outdoor temperature and time to collection, on our data. Overall, we demonstrate that the gut microbiome has the potential to be effectively deployed as a tool for health and environmental monitoring in a population of sanctuary chimpanzees, but the design must be carefully considered. We encourage other institutions to apply these approaches and integrate health and physiology data to build on the utility of gut microbiome analysis for ensuring the welfare of captive primates in a range of contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajp.70004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143632674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Maternal Decision-Making in Non-Mother Caregiving Negotiation for Infants in Black-and-White Snub-Nosed Monkeys (Rhinopithecus bieti)","authors":"Chun-Yan Cui,&nbsp;Jing Sun,&nbsp;Jian-Dong Lai,&nbsp;Qing-Lei Sun,&nbsp;Sang Ge,&nbsp;Liang-Wei Cui,&nbsp;Zhen-Hua Guan","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70020","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Allomaternal care, or caregiving by non-maternal individuals, is prevalent in primates, yet few studies have explored the role of maternal consent and decision-making during this process. This study introduces the concept of “non-mother caregiving negotiation”, highlighting the mother's primary role in deciding on non-maternal caregiving. This study focuses on a semi-provisioned breeding band of black-and-white snub-nosed monkeys (<i>Rhinopithecus bieti</i>) in the Xiangguqing area of the Baimaxueshan National Nature Reserve. We investigated how non-maternal females employ signaling behaviors to express their desire to care for infants and how maternal consent is achieved. Our study found that non-maternal females use specific behaviors, such as grooming the mother, gently touching, kissing, grooming the infant, or softly pulling the infant closer, to signal their interest. Mothers respond consistently to these signals, but their decisions to allow caregiving largely depend on the infant age and the caregiving experience of non-maternal females. As infants grow older, mothers become more likely to permit caregiving, particularly from females with prior caregiving or birthing experience. During each caregiving event, infants were often transferred among multiple caregivers, with infants being passed an average of 2.2 times by 2.5 caregivers within the same caregiving event. Additionally, when infants are under the care of non-maternal females, mothers rest less and spend more time on feed, social, move and other activities, thus reducing their own caregiving costs while enabling non-maternal females to gain caregiving involvement. Consequently, non-mother caregiving negotiation emerges as a behavior shaped by communicative interactions between mothers and non-maternal females, offering new insights into caregiving dynamics in primates and illuminating caregiving behaviors in both primate and human societies.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143595383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mitochondrial DNA for Phylogeny Building: Assessing Individual and Grouped mtGenes as Proxies for the mtGenome in Platyrrhines","authors":"Natalie Finnegan,&nbsp;Marcela G. M. Lima,&nbsp;Jessica W. Lynch","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70017","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Phylogenetic trees are analytic tools used in primate studies to elucidate evolutionary relationships. Because of its relative ease to sequence and rapid evolution compared to nuclear genomes, mitochondrial DNA is frequently used for phylogeny building. This project evaluated the effectiveness of using individual or grouped mitochondrial genes (mtGenes) as a proxy for the mitochondrial genome (mtGenome) in phylogeny building within two nested primate datasets, Cebidae and Platyrrhini, with differing divergence dates. mtGene utility rankings were determined based on congruence values to the mtGenome tree. mtGenes trees were also assessed on tree resolution and ability to sort nested clades. We found that most individual mtGenes, including ribosomal genes (12S and 16S), COX genes, most ND genes, and <span>d</span>-Loop are not appropriate for use as proxies for the mtGenome when tree building in either the Cebidae or Platyrrhini set. On average, grouped mtGenes outperformed individual mtGenes in both sets, and mtGene and grouped mtGene rankings varied between sets. Pairing CYB and COX3 together or pairing ND2 and CYB worked well in both the Cebidae set and the Platyrrhini set. We also found that nucleotide diversity is not a predictor of mtGene performance. Instead, it may be that unique mtGene or mtGene system evolutionary history impacts mtGene performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajp.70017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143581576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparing the Performances of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Two Self-Awareness Tasks","authors":"Lisa-Claire Vanhooland,&nbsp;Constanze Mager,&nbsp;Aurora Teuben,&nbsp;Thomas Bugnyar,&nbsp;Jorg J. M. Massen","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70010","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Self-awareness has most commonly been studied in nonhuman animals by implementing mirror self-recognition (MSR) tasks. The validity of such tasks as a stand-alone method has, however, been debated due to their high interindividual variation (including in species deemed self-aware like chimpanzees), their reliance on only one sensory modality, their discrete outcomes (i.e., pass/fail) and, in general, questionned regarding their ability to assess self-awareness. Therefore, a greater variety of methods that assess different aspects of the self, while simultaneously contributing to a more gradualist view of self-awareness, would be desirable. One such method is the body-as-obstacle task (BAO), testing for another dimension of body self-awareness. The ability to understand one's own body as an obstacle to the completion of a desired action emerges in young children at approximately the same age as mirror self-recognition, suggesting a shared mental representation. Whereas recently some studies showed body self-awareness in nonhuman animals, so far, outside of children no studies have compared how the performances of individuals relate between these two tasks. Therefore, here we study both a MSR and a BAO task in chimpanzees and gorillas. We chose these species particularly because evidence for MSR in chimpanzees is well established, whereas results for gorillas have been mixed, which has been attributed to the study design of MSR tasks, and for which a BAO task might thus provide more conclusive evidence. We find that although only some chimpanzees showed evidence for mirror self-recognition, thus replicating previous findings on interspecies differences in MSR, chimpanzees and gorillas performed equally well in the BAO task. Yet, we further found no correlation between the individuals' performances in both tasks. We discuss the implications of these findings for the interpretation of the results of BAO tasks as a possible alternative paradigm for the study of self-awareness in non-human animals.</p>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajp.70010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143565208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A History of Primatology in Canada and an Introduction to the Special Issue","authors":"Julie A. Teichroeb,&nbsp;Amanda D. Melin,&nbsp;Linda M. Fedigan","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70019","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Primatological research by anthropologists and evolutionary biologists based in Canada has expanded greatly since its inception ca. 60 years ago. The research foci of the founding primatologists were based on the study of social behaviors to understand human behavior. While Canadian anthropologists have remained interested in how study of our nonhuman primate relatives can inform our understanding of our own species, today the currently active generations of researchers are running labs and research groups focused on a broad range of questions and species and are using an expanded scope of methods to study everything from molecules to metapopulations. We envisioned that this issue of papers would highlight the innovative primate research being conducted by primatologists based in Canada and facilitate further collaboration among researchers, as well as providing a potentially useful introduction for students and postdocs interested in pursuing primatology in Canada. We begin with a historical description of how primatology started and developed in Canada, focusing on three founders of behavioral primatology in Canada - Frances Burton, Linda Fedigan, and Bernard Chapais. We then assess how the next generations have expanded the field significantly. We take a roughly geographical approach, from west to east, in describing the current research programs being done across Canada today and the broad range of topics being investigated. As part of this overview, we also introduce the 18 papers that are part of this special issue.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143533507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Patterns of Technical Variation in Chimpanzee Termite Fishing Behavior in Mbam and Djerem National Park, Cameroon","authors":"Tyler C. Andres-Bray,&nbsp;Ian Nichols,&nbsp;Tabitha Wilke,&nbsp;Macy Hafner,&nbsp;Abigail Jordan,&nbsp;Andrea Eysseric,&nbsp;Vivianna Borzym,&nbsp;Ekwoge E. Abwe,&nbsp;Bethan Morgan,&nbsp;Mary Katherine Gonder","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.70014","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Chimpanzees exhibit considerable inter- and intra-community variation in cognitively complex tool use behaviors, often attributed to social, genetic, and environmental factors. Termite fishing is a well-documented chimpanzee tool-using behavior that has been the subject of comparative research exploring behavioral variation between chimpanzee communities. However, termite fishing in the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (<i>Pan troglodytes ellioti</i>) has been historically underrepresented due to a lack of habituated populations. In this study, we used remote-activated camera traps at several termite mounds for 3 years to study termite fishing near Ganga Research Station in central Cameroon. We aimed to (1) identify elemental variation in chimpanzee termite fishing techniques at Ganga, an understudied community of <i>P. t. ellioti</i>, and (2) compare termite fishing behaviors in the Ganga community among more well-studied chimpanzee communities. We found 46 different combinations of behavioral elements representing termite fishing techniques used by Ganga chimpanzees (<i>n</i> = 9) across five termite mounds. The average technique was between three and four elements long (<i>x̄</i> = 3.673), and many chimpanzees had unique personal repertoires. Chimpanzees at Ganga shared the most behavioral similarities with two communities of savanna chimpanzees, Dindefelo and Kayan, and the nearby rainforest community of La Belgique in southern Cameroon. This behavioral similarity between Ganga chimpanzees, who inhabit a complex forest/savanna matrix, and two distant savanna-dwelling communities suggests similar environmental contexts contribute to termite fishing similarity. These results add to comparative studies of termite fishing behavior and demonstrate the utility of quantitative ethnographic methodology in exploring chimpanzee behavioral variation.</p>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajp.70014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143530496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}