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"Primates Fieldwork History."
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Primates in the Real World
The opening of this vital new book centers on a series of graves memorializing baboons killed near Amboseli National Park in Kenya in 2009--a stark image that emphasizes both the close emotional connection between primate researchers and their subjects and the intensely human qualities of the animals.Primates in the Real Worldgoes on to trace primatology's shift from short-term expeditions designed to help overcome centuries-old myths to the field's arrival as a recognized science sustained by a complex web of international collaborations. Considering a series of pivotal episodes spanning the twentieth century, Georgina Montgomery shows how individuals both within and outside of the scientific community gradually liberated themselves from primate folklore to create primate science. Achieved largely through a movement from the lab to the field as the primary site of observation, this development reflected an urgent and ultimately extremely productive reassessment of what constitutes \"natural\" behavior for primates.
An important contribution to the history of science and of women's roles in science, as well as to animal studies and the exploration of the animal-human boundary, Montgomery's engagingly written narrative provides the general reader with the most accessible overview to date of this enduringly fascinating field of study.
eBook
radiation of arboreal basal eutherian mammals beginning in the Late Cretaceous of India
India's Late Cretaceous fossil mammals include the only undisputed pre-Tertiary Gondwanan eutherians, such as DECCANOLESTES: Recent studies have suggested a relationship between Deccanolestes and African and European Paleocene adapisoriculids, which have been variably identified as stem euarchontans, stem primates, lipotyphlan insectivores, or afrosoricids. Support for a close relationship between Deccanolestes and any of these placental mammal clades would be unique in representing a confirmed Mesozoic record of a placental mammal. However, some paleogeographic reconstructions place India at its peak isolation from all other continents during the latest Cretaceous, complicating reconstructions of the biogeographic history of the placental radiation. Recent fieldwork in India has recovered dozens of better-preserved specimens of Cretaceous eutherians, including several new species. Here, we incorporate these new specimens into an extensive phylogenetic analysis that includes every clade with a previously hypothesized relationship to DECCANOLESTES: Our results support a robust relationship between Deccanolestes and Paleocene adapisoriculids, but do not support a close affinity between these taxa and any placental clade, demonstrating that Deccanolestes is not a Cretaceous placental mammal and reinforcing the sizeable gap between molecular and fossil divergence time estimates for the placental mammal radiation. Instead, our expanded data push Adapisoriculidae, including Deccanolestes, into a much more basal position than in earlier analyses, strengthening hypotheses that scansoriality and arboreality were prevalent early in eutherian evolution. This comprehensive phylogeny indicates that faunal exchange occurred between India, Africa, and Europe in the Late Cretaceous-Early Paleocene, and suggests a previously unrecognized ∼30 to 45 Myr \"ghost lineage\" for these Gondwanan eutherians.
Journal Article
Three decades of Philippine nonhuman primate studies: research gaps and opportunities for Philippine primatology
The Philippines is considered a megadiverse country. However, there are few published studies on its nonhuman primate (NHP) species (Carlito syrichta, Macaca fascicularis, and Nycticebus menagensis). Understanding the nature and extent of existing NHP research in the Philippines would help us to determine research gaps and opportunities. Thus, studies on NHPs of Philippine origin were retrieved from online databases including Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Primate Lit, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), and relevant authors. Of a total of 107 studies on Philippine NHP from 1989 to 2019, most focused on Philippine long-tailed macaque (52.78%), and Philippine tarsier (42.59%), with far fewer on Philippine slow loris (4.63%). Fewer studies were based on fieldwork (26.17%); more were based on research on captive animals or that undertaken in the laboratory (34.58%), or used only existing specimens or data (33.64%). Studies on wild NHPs were mostly conducted in Bohol Island. In terms of the type of research, studies on diseases (38.60%) were the most prevalent for macaques; ecological studies (23.91%) for tarsiers; evolutionary, taxonomic, and systematic studies (40%), and ecological and natural history studies (40%) for lorises. Philippine researchers and collaborations with foreign researchers contributed fewer studies (43.93%) than foreign-only researchers (56.07%). In conclusion, although research on Philippine NHPs is increasing, there is a bias with regards to the species studied, the type of research, and study location. Conservation-driven studies are also lacking. These gaps offer opportunities for further research to identify threats to the survival of NHPs in the Philippines, and for the development of plans and effective strategies for their conservation.
Journal Article
Storytelling Apes
The annals of field primatology are filled with stories about charismatic animals native to some of the most challenging and remote areas on earth. There are, for example, the chimpanzees of Tanzania, whose social and family interactions Jane Goodall has studied for decades; the mountain gorillas of the Virungas, chronicled first by George Schaller and then later, more obsessively, by Dian Fossey; various species of monkeys (Indian langurs, Kenyan baboons, and Brazilian spider monkeys) studied by Sarah Hrdy, Shirley Strum, Robert Sapolsky, Barbara Smuts, and Karen Strier; and finally the orangutans of the Bornean woodlands, whom Biruté Galdikas has observed passionately. Humans are, after all, storytelling apes. The narrative urge is encoded in our DNA, along with large brains, nimble fingers, and color vision, traits we share with lemurs, monkeys, and apes. In Storytelling Apes, Mary Sanders Pollock traces the development and evolution of primatology field narratives while reflecting upon the development of the discipline and the changing conditions within natural primate habitat.
Like almost every other field primatologist who followed her, Jane Goodall recognized the individuality of her study animals: defying formal scientific protocols, she named her chimpanzee subjects instead of numbering them, thereby establishing a trend. For Goodall, Fossey, Sapolsky, and numerous other scientists whose works are discussed in Storytelling Apes, free-living primates became fully realized characters in romances, tragedies, comedies, and never-ending soap operas. With this work, Pollock shows readers with a humanist perspective that science writing can have remarkable literary value, encourages scientists to share their passions with the general public, and inspires the conservation community.
eBook
Exploring Early Human Presence in West Central Africa’s Rainforests: Archeo-Paleontological Surveys, Taphonomy, and Insights from Living Primates in Equatorial Guinea
Since 2014, the Paleoanthropology Group of the National Museum of Natural Sciences (CSIC), in collaboration with Equatoguinean researchers, has been conducting archeo-paleontological fieldwork in Equatorial Guinea, continuing a longstanding Spanish naturalist tradition in this region of West Central Africa. These multidisciplinary investigations, framed within an archeo-paleo-anthropological approach, aim primarily to identify early human occupation in the Central African rainforests. To date, robust evidence of Pleistocene human presence has been documented, particularly through lithic assemblages. Although the scarcity and fragmentation of well-dated sites in Central Africa complicate chronological placement, technological traits observed in the lithic industries recorded in Equatorial Guinea show clear affinities with the African Middle Stone Age (MSA). Complementary taphonomic analyses of faunal remains have been undertaken to better understand bone preservation and fossilization processes under tropical rainforest conditions, thereby contributing to the interpretation of archeological contexts. In parallel, ongoing primatological research within the project—focused on extant primates in their natural habitats—seeks to provide ethological models relevant to the study of hominin locomotor evolution. Notably, the project has led to the ecogeographic characterization of the Engong chimpanzee group in Monte Alén National Park, one of the country’s most pristine protected areas.
Journal Article
Why Natural History Is Important to (Primate) Science: A Baboon Case Study
Natural history was the scientific approach used in early primate field studies and through the 1960s. After that, natural history fell out of favor, considered either bad science or not science at all. In my plenary talk at the 2018 IPS Congress in Nairobi, I argued that primate science once again needs natural history. Here, I reprise that argument, illustrating the long and tortuous route that took me to this conclusion. I use information on wild baboons (Papio anubis) from my 47-year field study in Kenya to support my claims. I then explain the historical and current reasons why science, including primate science, needs natural history, particularly in the Anthropocene.
Journal Article
Dominance rank and the presence of sexually receptive females predict feces-measured body temperature in male chimpanzees
Quantifying the costs of mating is key for understanding life-history trade-offs. As a reflection of metabolic rate, body temperature is one metric for assaying these costs. However, conventional methods for measuring body temperature are invasive and unsuitable for the study of free-living populations of endangered species, including great apes. A promising proxy for body temperature is fecal temperature, the internal temperature of fecal deposits shortly following defecation. We validated thismethod with humans, finding that maximum fecal temperature is a reliable proxy for rectal temperature. We then applied this method to wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda. We collected and analyzed 101 fecal temperature measurements from 43 adult chimpanzees (male: N = 28; female: N = 15). Chimpanzee fecal temperature ranged from 33.4 to 38.9 °C, with a mean of 35.8 °C. Although fecal temperature was not predicted by sex, age, or ambient temperature, male fecal temperature was 1.1 °C higher on days when sexually receptive females were present and was positively correlated with male dominance rank. Post hoc analyses showed that overall copulation rates, but not aggression rates, were positively correlated with fecal temperature, suggesting that sexual physiology and behavior best explain mating-related temperature variation. Together, these results indicate fecal temperature is a reliable proxy for core body temperature in large-bodied mammals, captures metabolic costs associated with male mating behavior, and represents a valuable noninvasive tool for biological field research.
Journal Article
Indigenous archaeologies : decolonizing theory and practice
With case studies from North America to Australia and South Africa and covering topics from archaeological ethics to the repatriation of human remains, this book charts the development of a new form of archaeology that is informed by indigenous values and agendas. This involves fundamental changes in archaeological theory and practice as well as substantive changes in the power relations between archaeologists and indigenous peoples. Questions concerning the development of ethical archaeological practices are at the heart of this process.
eBook
An Ecological Experiment on the Grand Scale
In the 1940s, the medical entomologist Alexander J. Haddow and his expatriate and indigenous collaborators conducted intensive field studies of the relationships between mosquitos, monkeys, humans, and the yellow fever virus in Bwamba District, Uganda. In order to disentangle the complexities of these relationships, colonial scientists found it necessary to transform natural places into experimental spaces by importing non-native species, manufacturing novel structures, and manipulating the behavior of human residents. This work transformed Bwamba into a particular kind of place, a place constructed to represent nature and natural relationships to the trained and expert eye. In turn, Bwamba shaped the researchers’increasingly complex understanding of the natural cycles of yellow fever infection. Haddow’s practices reveal the tension between the imperative to understand yellow fever holistically and the imperative to produce experimental results with laboratory-like precision and “placelessness” in mid-twentieth-century medical field research.
Journal Article