Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Ontogeny of Complex Tool Use in Great Apes

人类进化的标志之一是创造和使用复杂的工具，但这种行为适应发展的具体机制尚不完全清楚。这一博士论文项目将调查在野生黑猩猩种群中学习和模仿的作用，以及在觅食工具使用中的性别差异在工具技能发展中的作用。黑猩猩是我们现存的近亲，对它们工具传统的研究为人类文化和技术的进化起源提供了独特的见解。该项目还将为学生提供实地研究和培训的机会，并支持研究现场的大猩猩保护工作。这个项目的具体目标是区分黑猩猩获得复杂工具技能所涉及的社会学习机制，量化不同社会学习机会的影响，并评估工具技能获得中性别差异的相互竞争的假说。刚果共和国Goualougo三角的黑猩猩在非人类中表现出一些最复杂的工具行为，这将是第一个调查它们如何学习这些技能的研究。将使用聚焦和全事件抽样进行直接观察，并辅之以黑猩猩工具使用的远程视频片段。将采用横向和纵向两种方法来记录工具技能的个体发展。这项研究的洞察力将提炼原始人血统中物质文化进化的模型。具体地说，研究结果将有助于解决有关社会学习如何影响种内行为多样性的争论，阐明野生类人猿如何世代保持复杂的工具传统，并澄清黑猩猩在工具辅助觅食中性别分化的个体遗传学起源。

One of the hallmarks of human evolution has been the creation and use of complex tools, but the specific mechanisms by which this behavioral adaptation developed are not fully understood. This doctoral dissertation project will investigate the roles of teaching and imitation, as well as sex differences in foraging tool use, in the development of tool skills in a wild chimpanzee population. Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, and the study of their tool traditions provides unique insights into the evolutionary origins of human culture and technology. This project will also provide student field research and training opportunities and support great ape conservation efforts at the research site. The specific goals of this project are to differentiate the social learning mechanisms involved in chimpanzees' acquisition of complex tool skills, quantify the impact of variable social learning opportunity, and evaluate competing hypotheses for sex differences in tool skill acquisition. Chimpanzees of the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo, exhibit some of the most complex tool behavior among nonhumans, and this will be the first study to investigate how they learn these skills. Direct observations using focal and all-occurrence sampling will be conducted and supplemented by remote video footage of chimpanzee tool use. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches will be employed to document the ontogeny of tool skills. Insights from this study will refine models of the evolution of material culture in the hominin lineage. Specifically, results will help to resolve debates about how social learning influences intraspecific behavioral diversity, illuminate how complex tool traditions are maintained among wild apes over generations, and clarify the ontogenetic origins of sexual differentiation in tool-assisted foraging among chimpanzees.