The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest 40 Years of Research

About this book

Taï Chimpanzee Project (Taï National Park, Cote D'Ivoire) has yielded unprecedented insights into the nature of cooperation, cognition, and culture in our closest living relatives. Founded in 1979 by Christophe and Hedwige Boesch, the project has entered its 40th year of continuous research. Alongside other famous long-term chimpanzee study sites at Gombe and Mahale in East Africa, the tireless work of the team at Taï has contributed to the fields of behavioural ecology and anthropology as well as improving public awareness of the urgent need to protect this already endangered species. Encompassing important research topics including chimpanzee ecology, reproductive behaviour, tool use, culture, communication, cognition and conservation, The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest provides an engaging account of how Taï Chimpanzees are adapted to African jungle life and how they have developed unique forms of cooperation with less violence, regular adoptions and complex cultural differences between groups

Contents

Introduction
1. War and Peace in the Taï Chimpanzee Project: Running a Long-Term Chimpanzee Research Project / Christophe Boesch
2. Developments in Statistical Methods Applied over Four Decades of Research, Taï Chimpanzee Project / Roger Mundry
3. Observation Protocol and Long-Term Data Collection in Taï / Roman Wittig and Christophe Boesch
4. The Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF) and the Taï Chimpanzee Project (TCP) / Emmanuelle Normand, Ilka Herbinger, Joseph Kouassi and Yves Kablan
5. Insights from Genetic Analyses of the Taï Chimpanzees / Linda Vigilant
6. Endocrinological Analyses at Taï / Tobias Deschner and Verena Behringer
7. Chimpanzee Behavioural Diversity and the Contribution of the Taï Chimpanzee Project / Christophe Boesch
8. An Energetic Model of Foraging Optimisation: Wild Chimpanzee Hammer Selection for Nut-Cracking / Giulia Sirianni, Lydia Luncz and Paolo Gratton
9. Demography and Life History of Five Chimpanzee Communities in Taï National Park / Christophe Boesch and Roman Wittig
10. Adoption in the Taï Chimpanzees: Costs, Benefits, and Strong Social Relationships / Liran Samuni, Roman Wittig and Catherine Crockford
11. Spatial Integration of Unusually High Numbers of Immigrant Females into the South Group: Further Support for the Bisexually-Bonded Model in Taï Chimpanzees / Sylvain Lemoine, Catherine Crockford and Roman Wittig
12. Forty Years Striving to Capture Culture among the Taï Chimpanzees / Christophe Boesch
13. Cultural Diversity of Nut-cracking Behaviour Between Two Populations of Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Côte d'Ivoire / Lydia Luncz, Roger Mundry, Serge Soiret and Christophe Boesch
14. Ecological and Social Influences on Rates of Social Play in Immature Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) / Yasmin Moebius, Peter Walsh, Grégoire Kohou and Christophe Boesch
15. Long-Term Diet of the Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Taï National Park: Inter-Annual Variations in Consumption / Zoro Bertin Gone Bi and Roman Wittig
16. Why Taï Mangabeys Do Not Use Tools to Crack Nuts like Sympatric-Living Chimpanzees: A Cognitive Limitation on Monkey Feeding Ecology / Karline Janmaat and Richard Byrn
17. Providing Research for Conservation from Long-Term Field Sites / Marie-Lyne Després-Einspenner, Yves A. Kablan, Celestin Kouakou, Hjalmar Kühl and Paul N'Goran
18. Rank Changes in Female Chimpanzees in Taï National Park / Alexander Mielke, Catherine Crockford and Roman Wittig
19. Effects of Large-Scale Knockouts on Chimpanzee Association Networks / Julia Riedel, Christophe Boesch and Mathias Franz
20. Why Do the Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest Share Meat? The Value of Bartering, Begging, and Hunting / Cristina Gomes, Roger Mundry and Christophe Boesch
21. Group Specific Social Dynamics Affect Urinary Oxytocin Levels in Taï Male Chimpanzees / Anna Preis, Liran Samuni, Tobias Deschner, Catherine Crockford and Roman M. Wittig
22. The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest as Models for Hominine Microorganism Ecology and Evolution / Jan Gogarten, Grit Schubert, Fabian Leendertz and Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer
23. Acute Infectious Diseases Occurring in the Taï Chimpanzee Population: A Review / Livia Victoria Patrono and Fabian Leendertz
24. Why Does the Chimpanzee Vocal Repertoire Remain Poorly Understood? And What Can Be Done About It / Catherine Crockford
25. Sexual Dimorphism in Chimpanzee Vocalisations: A Comparison of Male and Female Call Productin and Acoustic Parameters / Ammie Kalan
26. Gestural Usage and Development in Two Subspecies of Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii/verus) / Marlen Fröhlich and Simone Pika
27. Spatial Cognitive Abilities in Foraging Chimpanzees / Simone Ban and Emmanuelle Normand
28. Temporal Cognition in Taï Chimpanzees / Karline Janmaat

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Biography

Christophe Boesch is Director of the Department of Primatology at the Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany and Professor of Zoology at the Universität Leipzig, Germany. He co-founded the Taï Chimpanzee Project in Côte d'Ivoire, Africa with his wife Hedwige in 1979 and was its Director for thirty-five years. He is also the founder and President of the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation. His research concentrates on the evolution of cooperation, tool use and culture in wild chimpanzees and its implication for our understanding of human evolution.

Roman Wittig is Group Leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, and has been Director of the Taï Chimpanzee Project since 2012. His research focusses on the costs and benefits of group living, social bonds and social cognition in wild chimpanzees and other non-human primates, in particular Bonobos, Chacma baboons and Sooty mangabeys.


Contributors:
- Christophe Boesch
- Roger Mundry
- Roman Wittig
- Emmanuelle Normand
- Ilka Herbinger
- Joseph Kouassi
- Yves Kablan
- Linda Vigilant
- Tobias Deschner
- Verena Behringer
- Giulia Sirianni
- Lydia Luncz
- Paolo Gratton
- Liran Samuni
- Catherine Crockford
- Sylvain Lemoine
- Serge Soiret
- Zoro Bertin Gone Bi
- Karline Janmaat
- Richard Byrn
- Marie-Lyne Després-Einspenner
- Celestin Kouakou
- Hjalmar Kühl
- Paul N'Goran
- Alexander Mielke
- Julia Riedel
- Mathias Franz
- Cristina Gomes
- Anna Preis
- Jan Gogarten
- Grit Schubert
- Fabian Leendertz
- Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer
- Livia Victoria Patrono
- Ammie Kalan
- Marlen Fröhlich
- Simone Pika
- Simone Ban