Chimpanzees possess a large number of behavioral and cultural traits among nonhuman species. The “disturbance hypothesis” predicts that human impact depletes resources and disrupts social learning processes necessary for behavioral and cultural transmission. We used a dataset of 144 chimpanzee communities, with information on 31 behaviors, to show that chimpanzees inhabiting areas with high human impact have a mean probability of occurrence reduced by 88%, across all behaviors, compared to low-impact areas. This behavioral diversity loss was evident irrespective of the grouping or categorization of behaviors. Therefore, human impact may not only be associated with the loss of populations and genetic diversity, but also affects how animals behave. Our results support the view that “culturally significant units” should be integrated into wildlife conservation.

Primates are facing an impending extinction crisis, driven by extensive habitat loss, land use change and hunting. Climate change is an additional threat, which alone or in combination with other drivers, may severely impact those taxa unable to track suitable environmental conditions. Here, we investigate the extent of climate and land use/cover (LUC) change‐related risks for primates. We employed an analytical approach to objectively select a subset of climate scenarios, for which we then calculated changes in climatic and LUC conditions for 2050 across primate ranges (N = 426 species) under a best‐case scenario and a worst‐case scenario. Generalized linear models were used to examine whether these changes varied according to region, conservation status, range extent and dominant habitat. Finally, we reclassified primate ranges based on different magnitudes of maximum temperature change, and quantified the proportion of ranges overall and of primate hotspots in particular that are likely to be exposed to extreme temperature increases. We found that, under the worst‐case scenario, 74% of Neotropical forest‐dwelling primates are likely to be exposed to maximum temperature increases up to 7°C. In contrast, 38% of Malagasy savanna primates will experience less pronounced warming of up to 3.5°C. About one quarter of Asian and African primates will face up to 50% crop expansion within their range. Primary land (undisturbed habitat) is expected to disappear across species' ranges, whereas secondary land (disturbed habitat) will increase by up to 98%. With 86% of primate ranges likely to be exposed to maximum temperature increases >3°C, primate hotspots in the Neotropics are expected to be particularly vulnerable. Our study highlights the fundamental exposure risk of a large percentage of primate ranges to predicted climate and LUC changes. Importantly, our findings underscore the urgency with which climate change mitigation measures need to be implemented to avert primate extinctions on an unprecedented scale.

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Graphical Abstract Highlights d Bonobos and gorillas had stronger looking impulses compared to chimpanzees d Young apes looked longest at camera traps compared to mature individuals d Presence of a research site or conspecifics reduced the duration of looking d Both social and environmental factors affect great ape curiosity in the wild In Brief Kalan et al. use a large-scale field experiment to assess the reaction of wild great apes toward a novel object: camera trap devices. Bonobos show the strongest looking impulse and are more neophobic than either gorillas or chimpanzees. Additional social and environmental effects on reactions demonstrate the complexities of animal curiosity.

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.

Aim Comparative phylogeography across a large number of species allows investigating community-level processes at regional and continental scales. An effective approach to such studies would involve automatic retrieval of georeferenced sequence data from nucleotide databases (a first step towards an 'automated phylogeography'). It remains unclear if, despite repeated calls, georeferencing of nucleotide databases has increased in frequency, and if accumulated data allow for broad applications based on automated retrieval of sequence data and associated geographical information. Here, we investigated geographical information available in NCBI GenBank accessions for tetrapods, exploring temporal and geographical patterns in georeferencing, and quantifying data available for automated phylogeography.Location Global. MethodsWe developed Python and R scripts to (1) download metadata from GenBank (1,125,514 accessions, > 20,000 species); (2) geocode accessions from associated metadata; (3) map originally georeferenced and geocoded accessions and plot their frequency against time; (4) assess the size of intraspecific sets of homologous sequences and compare their geographical extent with species ranges, thus evaluating their potential for phylogeographical analyses.Results Only 6.2% of surveyed tetrapod GenBank submissions reported geographical coordinates, without increase in recent years. Our geocoding raised georeferenced accessions to 15.1%. The geographical distribution of georeferenced accessions is patchy, and especially sparse in economically underdeveloped areas. Automatically retrievable informative data sets covering most of the range are available for very few species of wide-ranging tetrapods.Main conclusions Although geocoding offers a partial solution to the scarcity of direct georeferencing, the amount of data potentially useful for automated phylogeography is still limited. Strong underrepresentation of hard-to-access areas suggests that sampling logistics represent a main hindrance to global data availability. We propose that, besides enhancing georeferencing of genetic data, future research agendas should focus on collaborative efforts to sample genetic diversity in biodiversity-rich tropical areas.

Questions: Which environmental variables influence grass diversity in West Africa? What are the effects of climate and grass functional traits on the spatial patterns (richness and abundance) of the grass clades Andropogoneae, Paniceae and Chloridoideae?Location: West Africa, demarcated by the Atlantic Ocean in the west and south (20°W and 4°N), the Sahara desert in the north (25°N) and the border between Niger and Chad in the east (20°E).Methods: Based on 38 912 georeferenced occurrence records, we modelled the distribution of 302 grass species (51% of West African grass diversity). We integrated species richness, abundance and functional traits (life cycle, photosynthetic type and height) to determine the contribution of the most speciose grass clades (Andropogoneae, Paniceae and Chloridoideae) to overall grass diversity in West Africa.Results: Precipitation is the variable most often influencing the species distribution models of grasses in West Africa. Richness and relative abundance of the tribe Andropogoneae show a centre of diversity in Sudanian savanna regions. The height of Andropogoneae species, generally >150 cm, is driving this ecological dominance. Species richness of the tribe Paniceae is more dispersed and shows two main centres of abundance: The southern regions with higher mean annual precipitation and tree density are dominated by C 3 Paniceae species. The Sahelian regions in the north are dominated by short Paniceae species with the C 4 NAD-ME photosynthetic subtype, as well as Chloridoideae possessing the same functional attributes. Conclusions:Our study provides insight into the environmental correlates of grass species richness in West Africa and contributes to the much-needed research on tropical rangelands. Moreover, the integration of evolutionary history significantly improves our understanding of large-scale biodiversity patterns.

DNA sequences have been widely used for taxonomy, inferring phylogenetic relationships and identifying species boundaries. Several specific methods to define species delimitations based on molecular phylogenies have appeared recently, with the generalized mixed Yule coalescent (GMYC) method being most popular. However, only few studies on land plants have been published so far and GMYC analyses of bryophytes are missing. Dicranum is a large genus of mosses whose (morpho-)species are partly ill-defined and frequently confused. To infer molecular species delimitations, we reconstructed phylogenetic trees based on five chloroplast markers and nuclear ribosomal ITS sequences from 27 out of 30 species occurring in Europe. We applied the species delimitation methods GMYC and Poisson tree processes (PTP) in order to compare their discriminatory power with species boundaries inferred from the molecular phylogenetic reconstructions and with the morphological species concept. Phylogenetic circumscriptions were congruent with the morphological concept for 19 species, while eight species were molecularly not well delimited, mostly forming closely related species pairs. The automated species delimitation methods achieved similar results but tended to overestimate the number of potential species and exposed several incongruences between the morphological concept and inference from molecular phylogenetic reconstructions. It is concluded that GMYC and PTP methods potentially provide a useful and objective way of delimiting bryophyte species, but studies on further bryophyte data sets are necessary to infer whether incongruences might ensue from evolutionary processes and to test the suitability of these approaches.