Ecological and social correlates of chimpanzee tool use

Abstract

The emergence of technology has been suggested to coincide with scarcity of staple resources that led to innovations in the form of tool-assisted strategies to diversify or augment typical diets. We examined seasonal patterns of several types of tool use exhibited by a chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes ) population residing in central Africa, to determine whether their technical skills provided access to fallback resources when preferred food items were scarce. Chimpanzees in the Goualougo Triangle exhibit a diverse repertoire of tool behaviours, many of which are exhibited throughout the year. Further, they have developed specific tool sets to overcome the issues of accessibility to particular food items. Our conclusion is that these chimpanzees use a sophisticated tool technology to cope with seasonal changes in relative food abundance and gain access to high-quality foods. Subgroup sizes were smaller in tool using contexts than other foraging contexts, suggesting that the size of the social group may not be as important in promoting complex tool traditions as the frequency and type of social interactions. Further, reports from other populations and species showed that tool use may occur more often in response to ecological opportunities and relative profitability of foraging techniques than scarcity of resources.

Tool use by aquatic animals

“…Unlike arboreal habitats, terrestrial environments offer a larger number of substrates and objects, and terrestrial living allows for tool re-use, opportunities for combining tools and cumulative technology (reviewed in [86]). Thus, both on land and in water, the adaptive value of tool use and its presence depend greatly on the specific ecological conditions animals face [87].…”

“…There is even evidence of further specialization within tool-using sea otters as some otters consistently use particular tool sets, tool types or techniques [2,92]. While land-based animals certainly vary in tool-use behaviour seasonally and between individuals [87,[110][111][112][113][114] rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans R Soc B 368: 20120424 to the best of our knowledge, no individual-level tool-use specialization exists.…”

Nut‐cracking behaviour in wild‐born, rehabilitated bonobos (Pan paniscus): a comprehensive study of hand‐preference, hand grips and efficiency

“…Orangutans and, to a lesser extent, western lowland gorillas also have been reported to use tools in the wild [Breuer et al, 2005;Meulman and Van Schaik, 2013]. However, among primates, chimpanzees are commonly regarded as the most skilled tool-users in the wild [McGrew, 1992] and their tool-use skills have been studied extensively since the 1960s [e.g., Goodall, 1964;Sugiyama, 1981;Boesch and Boesch, 1983;Inoue-Nakamura and Matsuzawa, 1997;Sanz and Morgan, 2013]. Chimpanzees are particularly well-known for their nut-cracking tool-use behaviour, with different populations across West Africa using a variety of methods and materials (e.g.…”

If at first you don't succeed… Studies of ontogeny shed light on the cognitive demands of habitual tool use

“…[12], sea otters (E. lutis), orangutans (Pongo sp.) [4], chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) [13][14][15], capuchins (Sapajus sp.) [16,17], Burmese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea) [18,19], 1 New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) [9,20], and possibly green-backed herons (Butorides sp.)…”