Doctoral Dissertation Research: Behavioral flexibility and space use in nonhuman primates

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Behavioral flexibility, or the ability to change one’s behavior in different contexts, is a key human trait, but how this trait emerged in our lineage is less understood. Research shows that non-human primates show more behavioral flexibility than previously assumed. One way to approach the question of the emergence and nature of human behavioral flexibility is through a comparative study of how spaces are used, as representations of the range of behavioral decisions shown among our close nonhuman primate relatives. In particular, understanding the capability of different primates to modify their behavior in response to the fluctuating availability of food resources or changes in social relationships has the potential to provide valuable insights into promotes behavioral variation among primates, the importance of such variability in human evolution, and the behavioral capabilities of our human ancestors. This doctoral dissertation research project examines space use strategies of wild groups of a close human relative, to investigate how natural variation in food availability and changes in social dynamics can explain differences in space use. This project contributes to the training of graduate and undergraduate students as well as primate conservation. This study uses home range specific resource availability collected across the home ranges of five nonhuman primate groups, all occurrences of interactions between them, and daily follows of focal individuals to document initiations of group movements within their home ranges. These data are used to address three main questions: what differences in home range specific resource access promotes variation in space use strategies, whether differences in ranging overlap is linked to differences in social relationships between groups, and whether differences in group size and leadership influence group movement decisions. In addition to addressing the growing demand for investigations into behavioral variation from both anthropology and cognitive sciences, this research implements new technological approaches in data collection and analyses. A combination of spatially explicit resource modelling, social network analyses, and group-level comparisons are used to evaluate flexibility in primate space use strategies. This research not only addresses long-standing questions on the evolution of behavioral variation but can also be used to inform conservation strategies aimed at protecting non-human primates across the world. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.