Working and impacting local communities as establishing the start of a conservation initiative: American Society of Primatology conservation committee webinar.

Nonhuman primate species currently face human-induced pressures and will continue to face them in the modern landscape. These pressures require conservation projects in primate habitat countries to aid in protection, preservation, and conservation. Though there are several examples of primate conservation projects, starting up an initiative can be a daunting task.

Updating Chimpanzee Nesting Data at Mount Assirik (Niokolo Koba National Park, Senegal): Implications for Conservation.

The Niokolo Koba National Park (NKNP) is the largest protected area in Senegal and lies at the northern limit of the chimpanzee's range in West Africa. Recent information on nesting behavior and factors influencing nesting behavior is available for several sites outside NKNP. However, the information available for NKNP is obsolete.

Reciprocity and beyond: Explaining meat transfers in savanna-dwelling chimpanzees at Fongoli, Senegal.

Objectives: To understand the function of food sharing among our early hominin ancestors, we can turn to our nonhuman primate relatives for insight. Here, we examined the function of meat sharing by Fongoli chimpanzees, a community of western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in southeastern Sénégal.

Materials And Methods: We tested three non-mutually exclusive hypotheses that have been used to explain patterns of food sharing: kin selection, generalized reciprocity, and meat-for-mating opportunities.

Wild Chimpanzee Welfare: A Focus on Nutrition, Foraging and Health to Inform Great Ape Welfare in the Wild and in Captivity.

Adequate nutrition is essential for individual well-being, survival and reproductive fitness. Yet, in wild animals, including great apes, scoring nutrition or health comes with many challenges. Here, we have two aims: first, broadly review the scientific literature regarding nutritional data on wild chimpanzee foods to get a better understanding what nutrients foods comprise of, and second, highlight important findings on wild chimpanzee nutrition and welfare pertaining to diet.

Investigating foundations for hominin fire exploitation: Savanna-dwelling chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in fire-altered landscapes.

Humans' extensive use of fire is one behavior that sets us apart from all other animals. However, our ancestors' reliance on controlled forms of fire-i.e.

Western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) access a nutritionally balanced, high energy, and abundant food, baobab (Adansonia digitata) fruit, with extractive foraging and reingestion.

Intrinsic to several hypotheses explaining the evolution of foraging behavior complexity, such as proto-tool use, is the assumption that more complex ingestive behaviors are adaptations allowing individuals to access difficult to procure but nutritionally or energetically rewarding foods. However, nutritional approaches to understanding this complexity have been underutilized. The goal of this study was to evaluate potential nutritional determinants of two unusual foraging behaviors, fruit cracking with anvils and seed reingestion, by adult male western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) at Fongoli, Senegal during the baobab (Adansonia digitata) fruit season.

Water conservation: Human water balance exceeds that of other apes.

Water conservation played a role in the evolutionary adaptation of humans to hot, dry environments, but until now the extent of such biological adaptability was unknown. A new study compares great apes and humans to illuminate the complexities of water balance in humans and the factors that influence it.

Informing Protection Efforts for Critically Endangered Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and Sympatric Mammals amidst Rapid Growth of Extractive Industries in Senegal.

Updated information on Critically Endangered western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Senegal is urgently needed, given that gold mining is rapidly transforming landscapes and livelihoods. Specifically, biodiversity assessments will better elucidate the chimpanzee extinction risk here and yield baselines for monitoring. We compared mammal species richness between Fongoli (unprotected) and Assirik in Niokolo-Koba National Park to assess the efficacy of the only nationally protected area where chimpanzees range in this country.

Stable isotope variation in savanna chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) indicate avoidance of energetic challenges through dietary compensation at the limits of the range.

Objectives: Food scarcity is proposed to be a limitation to chimpanzees at the limits of their range; however, such a constraint has never been investigated in this context. We investigated patterns of δ C and δ N variation along a latitudinal gradient at the northwestern West African chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) range limit with the expectation that isotope ratios of chimpanzees at the range limit will indicate different dietary strategies or higher physiological constraints than chimpanzees further from the edge.

Materials And Methods: We measured δ C and δ N values in hair (n = 81) and plant food (n = 342) samples from five chimpanzee communities located along a latitudinal gradient in Southeastern Senegal.

Nest-Building Behaviour by Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Non-Protected Area of Diaguiri (Kedougou, Senegal): Implications for Conservation.

Diaguiri is a non-protected area situated in south-eastern Senegal. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) have been living here since 1999 but information on the characteristics of their nest sites have been lacking until now. Furthermore, we implemented nest survey methods recently standardised to arid landscapes during a national chimpanzee survey.

Savanna chimpanzees adjust sleeping nest architecture in response to local weather conditions.

Objectives: Great ape nests are hypothesized to aid safe, secure sleep via providing thermoregulation or protection from predators and vectors. We aimed to describe and investigate variation in chimpanzee nest architecture across two populations in response to local weather conditions.

Materials And Methods: We experimentally tested whether nests provide insulation by measuring heat loss within and outside nests, and took detailed measurements of the number, size, and type of materials used in nest building across two dry-habitat research sites (Fongoli, Senegal, and Issa, Tanzania).

The costs of living at the edge: Seasonal stress in wild savanna-dwelling chimpanzees.

Adaptations associated with shifting from a predominately forested habitat to a more open environment are considered a crucial step in hominin evolution. Understanding how chimpanzees, one of our closest-living relatives, are exposed to the selection pressures associated with living in a relatively sparse, hot, and dry environment can inform us about the relative importance of potential environmental stressors involved in adaptations to drier environments. We investigated the extent to which chimpanzees living in an extreme savanna habitat experience seasonal variability in either energy balance or thermoregulation (dehydration and heat exposure), as well as whether these potential environmental constraints are taxing to chimpanzee individuals.

Nocturnal behavior by a diurnal ape, the West African chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), in a savanna environment at Fongoli, Senegal.

Objectives: I report on the nocturnal behavior of Fongoli chimpanzees in a savanna mosaic during different seasons and lunar phases and test the hypothesis that hot daytime temperatures influence activity at night. I predicted that apes would be more active at night during periods of greater lunar illuminosity given diurnal primates' lack of visual specializations for low-light conditions and in dry season months when water scarcity exacerbated heat stress.

Materials And Methods: I observed chimpanzees for 403 hrs on 40 nights between 2007 and 2013 and categorized their activity as social, movement, or vocalization.

Primate archaeology evolves.

Since its inception, archaeology has traditionally focused exclusively on humans and our direct ancestors. However, recent years have seen archaeological techniques applied to material evidence left behind by non-human animals. Here, we review advances made by the most prominent field investigating past non-human tool use: primate archaeology.

Feeding in fear? How adult male western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) adjust to predation and savanna habitat pressures.

Objectives: We evaluated risk-sensitive foraging in adult male western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) occupying a savanna environment at Fongoli, Senegal. The aim of this study was to determine how the risks of predation and heat stress influenced their behavior while feeding on a key food, fruit of the baobab tree (Adansonia digitata).

Materials And Methods: Proximity of fruiting baobab trees to anthropogenic landmarks were compared to food intake, feeding rate, and behavioral indicators of fear in adult males (N = 11) at Fongoli.

Chimpanzee accumulative stone throwing.

The study of the archaeological remains of fossil hominins must rely on reconstructions to elucidate the behaviour that may have resulted in particular stone tools and their accumulation. Comparatively, stone tool use among living primates has illuminated behaviours that are also amenable to archaeological examination, permitting direct observations of the behaviour leading to artefacts and their assemblages to be incorporated. Here, we describe newly discovered stone tool-use behaviour and stone accumulation sites in wild chimpanzees reminiscent of human cairns.

Lethal aggression in Pan is better explained by adaptive strategies than human impacts.

Observations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) provide valuable comparative data for understanding the significance of conspecific killing. Two kinds of hypothesis have been proposed. Lethal violence is sometimes concluded to be the result of adaptive strategies, such that killers ultimately gain fitness benefits by increasing their access to resources such as food or mates.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and their mammalian sympatriates: Mt. Assirik, Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal.

In intact, mosaic ecosystems, chimpanzees are sympatric with a wide range of other mammals, which may be predators, prey, or competitors. We delve beyond the nominal data of species lists to interval-level data on 35 medium-bodied and large-bodied mammals encountered at a hot, dry, and open field site in far West Africa. Frequency of encounter, habitat where found, and number of individuals encountered are analysed for species for which enough data were accumulated.

Ethical issues in African great ape field studies.

Great apes have been systematically studied in the wild for over half a century. Great apes are now critically endangered and this raises significant ethical issues for field primatologists who study and work to conserve these primates and their habitats. The most immediate ethical concerns involve the well-being of the subjects, but there are also important ethical considerations involved in researchers' interactions with local human populations and extracting industry representatives.

Reconstruction of periodicity of repetitive linear enamel hypoplasia from perikymata counts on imbricational enamel among dry-adapted chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) from Fongoli, Senegal.

Periodicity of repetitive linear enamel hypoplasia (rLEH) in apes from high latitudes with single wet and dry seasons annually has not been described. We reconstruct periodicity and duration of rLEH in canine teeth from three recently deceased chimpanzees from Fongoli, Senegal with a marked seven-month dry season. High-resolution dental molds were taken in the field for magnified imaging with digital microscopy.

Plant-food and tool transfer among savanna chimpanzees at Fongoli, Senegal.

Transferring food is considered a defining characteristic of humans, as such behavior is relatively uncommon in other animal species save for kin-based transfer. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are one exception, as they commonly transfer meat among nonrelatives but rarely transfer other resources. New observations at Fongoli, Senegal, show habitual transfer of wild-plant foods and other non-meat resources among community members beyond transfers from mother to offspring.

Insectivory of savanna chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) at Fongoli, Senegal.

Little is known about the behavior of chimpanzees living in savanna-woodlands, although they are of particular interest to anthropologists for the insight they can provide regarding the ecological pressures affecting early hominins living in similar habitats. Fongoli, Senegal, is the first site where savanna chimpanzees have been habituated for observational data collection and is the hottest and driest site where such observation of chimpanzees occurs today. Previously, indirect evidence suggested these chimpanzees consumed termites throughout the year, an unusual occurrence for western and eastern chimpanzees.

Orangutans (Pongo spp.) may prefer tools with rigid properties to flimsy tools.

Preference for tools with either rigid or flexible properties was explored in orangutans (Pongo spp.) through an extension of D. J.