Lessons learned while protecting wild chimpanzees in West Africa.

Though human activities are postulated to be the main drivers of the worldwide biodiversity crisis, humans are also suggested by some to be an important part of the solution to the crisis. How can such a paradox be best solved? This paradox requires an adaptive, context-specific, dynamic solution, at a fine-grained scale that varies by location. The Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF) works on the ground in three West African countries: In Côte d'Ivoire, where bushmeat consumption is a recurrent and generalized threat to wildlife, WCF used live theater performances in the villages to address this issue. Post-activity evaluations revealed that the more often individuals have been part of such awareness activities, the less they will consume bushmeat. In nearby Liberia, where illegal miners have invaded many protected areas and intact forests, the WCF supports Community Watch Teams (CWT) to patrol the Sapo National Park with Forestry Development Authority staff. Within 11 months of its creation, the CWT patrols around and in the Sapo National Park resulted in thousands of illegal miners progressively leaving the national park. In Guinea, where coexistence between humans and primates has prevailed based on religious traditions, the WCF developed a strategic approach, as the Moyen-Bafing National Park contains about 5000 chimpanzees as well as some 255 villages. Therefore, we adopted an "integrated landscape approach" whereby the community activities are planned in combination with initiatives increasing forest regeneration and connectivity in high conservation value areas. Communities in northern Guinea confronted with dramatic fluctuations due to climatic changes welcomed such activities that help them become more resilient and adaptable to those alterations. In conclusion, evidence-based information at the local level helps to resolve the conservation paradox by adapting with the local communities' context-specific dynamic approaches to enhance the conservation of great apes.

Nocturnal activity in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Evidence for flexible sleeping patterns and insights into human evolution.

OBJECTIVES: We investigated occurrences and patterns of terrestrial nocturnal activity in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and modelled the influence of various ecological predictors on nocturnal activity. METHODS: Data were extracted from terrestrial camera-trap footage and ecological surveys from 22 chimpanzee study sites participating in the Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee. We described videos demonstrating nocturnal activity, and we tested the effects of the percentage of forest, abundance of predators (lions, leopards and hyenas), abundance of large mammals (buffalos and elephants), average daily temperature, rainfall, human activity, and percent illumination on the probability of nocturnal activity. RESULTS: We found terrestrial nocturnal activity to occur at 18 of the 22 study sites, at an overall average proportion of 1.80% of total chimpanzee activity, and to occur during all hours of the night, but more frequently during twilight hours. We found a higher probability of nocturnal activity with lower levels of human activity, higher average daily temperature, and at sites with a larger percentage of forest. We found no effect of the abundance of predators and large mammals, rainfall, or moon illumination. DISCUSSION: Chimpanzee terrestrial nocturnal activity appears widespread yet infrequent, which suggests a consolidated sleeping pattern. Nocturnal activity may be driven by the stress of high daily temperatures and may be enabled at low levels of human activity. Human activity may exert a relatively greater influence on chimpanzee nocturnal behavior than predator presence. We suggest that chimpanzee nocturnal activity is flexible, enabling them to respond to changing environmental factors.

Animal reactivity to camera traps and its effects on abundance estimate using distance sampling in the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire.

The use of camera traps (CTs) has become an increasingly popular method of studying wildlife, as CTs are able to detect rare, nocturnal, and elusive species in remote and difficult-to-access areas. It thus makes them suited to estimate animal density and abundance, identify activity patterns and new behaviours of animals. However, animals can react when they see the CTs and this can lead to bias in the animal population estimates. While CTs may provide many advantages, an improved understanding of their impacts on individual's behaviour is necessary to avoid erroneous density estimates. Yet, the impact of CTs on detected individuals, such as human odour near the device and the environment, or the infrared illumination, has received relatively little attention. To date, there is no clear procedure to remove this potential bias. Here, we use camera trap distance sampling (CTDS) to (1) quantify the bias resulting from the different animal responses to the CTs when determining animal density and abundance, and (2) test if olfactory, visual and auditory signals have an influence on the animals' reaction to CTs. Between March 2019 and March 2020, we deployed CTs at 267 locations distributed systematically over the entire Taï National Park. We obtained 58,947 videos from which we analysed four medium- to-large-bodied species (Maxwell's duiker (Philantomba maxwellii), Jentink's duiker (Cephalophus jentinki), pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis) and Western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus)) displaying different behaviours towards the CTs. We then established species-specific ethograms describing the behavioural responses to the CTs. Using these species-specific responses, we observed that the Maxwell's duiker reacted weakly to CTs (about 0.11% of the distance data), contrary to Jentink's duiker, pygmy hippopotamus and Western chimpanzee which reacted with relatively high frequencies, representing 32.82%, 52.96% and 16.14% of the distance data, respectively. Not taking into account the species-specific responses to the CTs can lead to an artificial doubling or tripling of the populations' sizes. All species reacted more to the CTs at close distances. Besides, the Jentink's duiker and the pygmy hippopotamus reacted significantly more to the CTs at night than during the day. Finally, as for olfactory signals, the probability of reaction to the CTs during the first days after CTs installation was weak in Maxwell's duiker, but concerned 18% of the video captures in Western chimpanzees which decreasing with time, but they remained high in pygmy hippopotamus and Jentink's duiker (65% and 70% of the video captures respectively). Careful consideration should be given to animal's response to CTs during the analysis and in the field, by reducing human's impact around the CTs installation.

Environmental variability supports chimpanzee behavioural diversity.

Large brains and behavioural innovation are positively correlated, species-specific traits, associated with the behavioural flexibility animals need for adapting to seasonal and unpredictable habitats. Similar ecological challenges would have been important drivers throughout human evolution. However, studies examining the influence of environmental variability on within-species behavioural diversity are lacking despite the critical assumption that population diversification precedes genetic divergence and speciation. Here, using a dataset of 144 wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) communities, we show that chimpanzees exhibit greater behavioural diversity in environments with more variability - in both recent and historical timescales. Notably, distance from Pleistocene forest refugia is associated with the presence of a larger number of behavioural traits, including both tool and non-tool use behaviours. Since more than half of the behaviours investigated are also likely to be cultural, we suggest that environmental variability was a critical evolutionary force promoting the behavioural, as well as cultural diversification of great apes.

Forest chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) remember the location of numerous fruit trees.

It is assumed that spatial memory contributes crucially to animal cognition since animals' habitats entail a large number of dispersed and unpredictable food sources. Spatial memory has been investigated under controlled conditions, with different species showing and different conditions leading to varying performance levels. However, the number of food sources investigated is very low compared to what exists under natural conditions, where food resources are so abundant that it is difficult to precisely identify what is available. By using a detailed botanical map containing over 12,499 trees known to be used by the Taï chimpanzees, we created virtual maps of all productive fruit trees to simulate potential strategies used by wild chimpanzees to reach resources without spatial memory. First, we simulated different assumptions concerning the chimpanzees' preference for a particular tree species, and, second, we varied the detection field to control for the possible use of smell to detect fruiting trees. For all these assumptions, we compared simulated distance travelled, frequencies of trees visited, and revisit rates with what we actually observed in wild chimpanzees. Our results show that chimpanzees visit rare tree species more frequently, travel shorter distances to reach them, and revisit the same trees more often than if they had no spatial memory. In addition, we demonstrate that chimpanzees travel longer distances to reach resources where they will eat for longer periods of time, and revisit resources more frequently where they ate for a long period of time during their first visit. Therefore, this study shows that forest chimpanzees possess a precise spatial memory which allows them to remember the location of numerous resources and use this information to select the most attractive resources.

Intergroup conflicts among chimpanzees in Taï National Park: lethal violence and the female perspective.

Intercommunity aggression in chimpanzees and primitive warfare in humans possess striking similarities, such as the common occurrence of large male coalitions, systematic control of territory boundaries, and lethal attacks on isolated individuals from neighboring groups. However, an important apparent contrast is the absence of recurrent peaceful interactions between neighboring groups of chimpanzees. We observed a remarkable range of behavior in intergroup encounters among three habituated communities of chimpanzees in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire. Lethal attacks are documented in these study groups for the first time, as well as year-long exchanges of parous adult females and peaceful intergroup visits of mothers with infants. Demographic factors, including group size and number of adult males, are shown to affect the nature of intergroup interactions in ways not considered previously. A reconsideration of the difference in intergroup interactions between eastern and western chimpanzees is proposed including a more important consideration of the female's perspective. The inclusion of the new complexities in intergroup interactions in chimpanzees allows new parallels to be drawn with the evolution of primitive warfare in humans.

Protected areas in tropical Africa: assessing threats and conservation activities.

Numerous protected areas (PAs) have been created in Africa to safeguard wildlife and other natural resources. However, significant threats from anthropogenic activities and decline of wildlife populations persist, while conservation efforts in most PAs are still minimal. We assessed the impact level of the most common threats to wildlife within PAs in tropical Africa and the relationship of conservation activities with threat impact level. We collated data on 98 PAs with tropical forest cover from 15 countries across West, Central and East Africa. For this, we assembled information about local threats as well as conservation activities from published and unpublished literature, and questionnaires sent to long-term field workers. We constructed general linear models to test the significance of specific conservation activities in relation to the threat impact level. Subsistence and commercial hunting were identified as the most common direct threats to wildlife and found to be most prevalent in West and Central Africa. Agriculture and logging represented the most common indirect threats, and were most prevalent in West Africa. We found that the long-term presence of conservation activities (such as law enforcement, research and tourism) was associated with lower threat impact levels. Our results highlight deficiencies in the management effectiveness of several PAs across tropical Africa, and conclude that PA management should invest more into conservation activities with long-term duration.