NERC CENTA - How critical is cultural knowledge for reintroducing great apes into their natural habitats?

Most great ape species are critically endangered. One of the primary proposals for their long-term conservation is to reintroduce captive populations back into natural habitats. Currently however there is a lack of basic science to guide reintroduction practices. This project aims to understand the likelihood that a given great ape population will survive and reproduce, if it was released – by quantifying their ability and necessity to culturally transmit the skills that are essential to solving the problems of their physical habitat.

Humans are heavily influenced by the culture in which they grow up and there is no question that even as children, we learn elements of culture from others. In addition humans can and do accumulate culture. Primary evidence for this are the artefacts around us, that differ across different human cultures and, crucially, that could not be reinvented by individuals working independently of the discoveries of their forebears. And so, humans unacquainted with novel environments are at severe risk of dying, unless they have access to local cultural adaptations to that environment (e.g. Burke and Will’s expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria had only one survivor). Given their enhanced intelligence and challenging physical environment, the same cultural dependency for survival may be true of non-human great apes– thus rendering reintroductions potentially highly dangerous (Custance et al. 2002 Int J Primatol). The current project aims to determine to what extent great ape long term prospects in new environments are likewise dependent on culture.

If indeed cultural knowledge is vital to survival in great apes, we would, for example, expect great apes to be very good at cultural transmission. However, current evidence suggests that great apes are poor at high fidelity (hi-fi) copying (and they do not teach each other often, either). In fact, it may be that unlike human children great apes do not acquire their tool-using skills through hi-fi copying (after all, other animals, e.g. woodpecker finches, are also born with an inclination to use tools). Great apes may reinvent the techniques required for efficient tool use for themselves after observing the outcomes of others actions. This would be classed as low-fidelity copying. The PI (Tennie) has previously termed this learning strategy the "zone of latent solutions", where latent solutions are the techniques that apes succeed in inventing for themselves. In other words: it may not require very much input before great apes reinvent techniques necessary for survival in natural habitats.

One way to test this prediction is to follow a recently reintroduced group of great apes, and record their inventions and survival. Part of this project will thus involve interviewing the staff that have already performed great ape reintroductions and followed and observed the apes. But in addition, we can seek independent evidence of whether great apes do show the required inventive skills. Recently the PI has developed several research paradigms that test the prediction that great apes are mainly good innovators, rather than good copiers. Of special importance is a study in which he provided naïve captive apes (western lowland gorillas) with the raw materials for behaviours thought to require cultural transmission in the wild (complex nettle feeding skills). The tested captive gorillas spontaneously invented these behaviours despite never having seen them (Tennie et al. 2008 Am J Primatol). Using the same methodology, the current project will continue this strategy of providing naïve apes with the raw materials involved in wild "cultural" behaviour. If naïve subjects show this 'wild' behaviour, it shows that they are innovative enough to allow them to reinvent it on their own. This will contribute to understanding the level of human training required for reintroductions of great apes in a wide range of domains (from nest building to social behaviour).

The training goal of this project is to train the student to become a mature researcher with the expertise and skills in the areas of animal cognition research – especially with regard to testing, analysing and presenting captive great ape work.

Contrary to what findaphd displays above, this project is led by Dr Claudio Tennie (School of Psychology) and Drs Thorpe and Chappell (School of Biosciences) at the University of Birmingham. For further information please contact Dr Tennie: [Email Address Removed]