Dry Habitat Chimpanzee Ecology: Implications for the Evolution of Bipedalism

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As our closest relatives in the primate order, chimpanzees are an important source of insight into the behavior of our earliest ancestors, the australopithecines. Chimpanzees are imperfect analogues, however, because australopithecines lived in drier habitats than those in which extant chimpanzees are typically found. All working chimpanzee research stations are in relatively wet habitats. In this project I aim to start a new study site on chimpanzees that live in an unusual grassland/riverine- forest habitat in the Semliki Valley Wildlife Reserve, Uganda. The particular focus of this research is the origin of bipedalism. There is little agreement among researchers about the selective forces that resulted in bipedalism, or about the course of its evolution. Earlier research suggested that bipedalism evolved as an adaptation to feeding on small fruits found in diminutive trees, trees found mostly in dry areas. Although not habitual bipeds, chimpanzees do engage in this form of locomotion on occasion. As chimpanzees are habituated to human observation at Semliki, I will observe the contexts of their bipedalism to understand better why our ape-like ancestor first adopted this unusual locomotor behavior. Study of these chimpanzees will assure their survival as well as helping us understand the evolution of the australopithecines.