We offer a PhD position documenting the cultural behavior of the Tai chimpanzees and investigating the effect of illegal human activity on their behaviors. The PhD is funded for 3 years and based at the Ape Social Mind Lab in Lyon (http://www.isc.cnrs.fr/) under supervision of Roman Wittig and Catherine Crockford.
The behavior and cognition of modern humans (Homo sapiens) uniquely enables knowledge and culture to accumulate over generations. How and why these powerful abilities evolved remains a conundrum, especially for traits that leave little fossil record, such as communication and perishable tool use. A promising avenue of investigation is conducting comparative research on our closest living relatives, especially chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), who show a number of similar and rare traits with modern humans (e.g. prosocial behavior, prolonged juvenile development, flexible tool use, cultural traits, etc.).
This PhD project will assess the extent to which current levels of human activity in the Tai National Park impact the diversity of cultural traits across four habituated chimpanzee communities of the Tai Chimpanzee Project. Human activity varies considerably with the two communities closest to the park boundary (North and South) suffering much higher rates of illegal human activity than the two communities deeper in the park (East and North East). The PhD has three objectives.
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