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Studying the dynamics of social learning in a wild community of chimpanzees using network-based model analysis.
Chimpanzee cultures are mainly constituted of tool-using behaviors. For instance, communities in West Africa crack nuts with stones, while chimpanzees in Central Africa use several sticks in a row to access bee nests. In the Ugandan community of Sonso (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii), none of these behaviors are present. Despite their small toolkit, the Sonso chimpanzees recently started displaying a novel behavior, moss-sponging (manufacturing a sponge from moss to drink water, pictured), adapted from their existing knowledge. Network-based analysis showed that this behavior spread through social learning, solving a long-lasting controversy in the chimpanzee culture debate, namely, whether chimpanzees exhibit social transmission of new behaviors or not. See Hobaiter et al.
Image Credit: Liran Samuni
Citation: (2014) PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 12(9) September 2014. PLoS Biol 12(9): ev12.i09. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pbio.v12.i09
Published: September 30, 2014
Copyright: © 2014 Hobaiter et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Chimpanzee cultures are mainly constituted of tool-using behaviors. For instance, communities in West Africa crack nuts with stones, while chimpanzees in Central Africa use several sticks in a row to access bee nests. In the Ugandan community of Sonso (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii), none of these behaviors are present. Despite their small toolkit, the Sonso chimpanzees recently started displaying a novel behavior, moss-sponging (manufacturing a sponge from moss to drink water, pictured), adapted from their existing knowledge. Network-based analysis showed that this behavior spread through social learning, solving a long-lasting controversy in the chimpanzee culture debate, namely, whether chimpanzees exhibit social transmission of new behaviors or not. See Hobaiter et al.
Image Credit: Liran Samuni