Tool use by wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus): ecology, socially biased learning and behavioral traditions

Abstract

This project continues our research on the use of tools by wild capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus), focusing mainly on the population of the Serra da Capivara National Park (PI), whose unusually complex instrumental repertoire has been the main subject of our studies. The proposed research involves a combination of observational/naturalistic approaches and experimental interventions in the field. Subproject 1 continues the survey of the repertoire of tool use in populations of the PNSC and nearby areas, including the population not yet studied the Serra das Confusões National Park (strategic in that it is halfway between our two long-term study sites, the PNSC and Fazenda Boa Vista , whose populations of capuchin monkeys exhibit very different "toolkits"). Subproject 2 will examine the ontogenetic development and opportunities for socially biased learning of the use of probe tools by PNSC monkeys, seeking to understand some particularities of this kind of tool use, such as a sharp gender bias (for poorly understood reasons, it is an almost exclusively male behavior). Subproject 3 is a continuation of our experimental field studies examining the dynamics of social diffusion of new behaviors by examining a potential situation of cumulative cultural learning (and involves the continuity of our cooperation with the Department of Anthropology, Univ. of Durham, UK). Subproject 4 is part of the "Primate Archaeology" project (coordinated by M. Haslam, University of Oxford, UK), which seeks to apply the tools of archeology to the study of the evolution of the use of stone tools in human and nonhuman primates. (AU)