Copy or innovate? Study sheds light on chimp culture

Chimpanzees in one part of the country crack and eat nuts, but others don't, and the difference could be a sign of their culture.

Cumulative culture is said to be the result of skills and technologies being transmitted and refined from generation to generation.

Some experts believe that this is unique to humans, and that trait like tool use by Chimps is not developed in individuals.

Their theory says animals can innovate without a model.

Evidence for this comes from captive chimp who have been seen independently developing simple tool use like scooping with a stick and sponging with a leaf.

It is vastly different to the wild and those behaviors differ from more complex techniques.

A professor in the anthropology department at the University ofZURICH designed a series of experiments with wild Chimpanzees.

One population of Chimpanzees in Bossou does crack nuts, but another group in Nimba does not.

If the Nimba population were to be introduced to the tools to do so, would they develop the behavior?

In the first scenario, the Chimpanzees encountered palm nuts in shells and stones that could be used to open them.

There were palm nuts in shells, stones and fruit. They found the stones, unshelled palm nuts and cracked nut shells in the third.

The final experiment offered them stones and Coula nuts, which are more commonly and easily cracked by Chimpanzees.

There are secret cameras.

The experiments ran for several months at a time in 2008 and 2011.

The experiment sites in Nimba were visited and explored by a lot of Chimpanzees, but they did not attempt to crack a nut.

Having observed nut cracking by Bossou Chimpanzees on many occasions, it was so interesting to watch the Nimba Chimpanzees interact with the same materials without ever cracking a nut.

The study suggests that nut cracking may be an outcome of cumulative culture, similar to that of humans.

The inability to control the numbers visiting their sites was acknowledged by the researchers.

Professor Gisela Kaplan, who was not involved with the research, questioned whether the numbers were enough to draw conclusions.

As in human society, the number of innovators is relatively small in animals and the expression of innovation depends on many social and ecological circumstances and pressures.

The authors of the study acknowledge that there are other possible explanations for the reticence of the Chimpanzees.

As Chimpanzees do crack nuts, they think it's unlikely the Nimba population was interested in a new food source.

The involvement of a normal-sized wild community and the length of the experiments allow for insights.

She said it would be interesting to test additional communities.

The findings so far suggest there may be greater continuity between the two.

More information: Kathelijne Koops, Field experiments find no evidence that chimpanzee nut cracking can be independently innovated, Nature Human Behaviour (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01272-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01272-9 Journal information: Nature Human Behaviour

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