UC Santa Cruz

This doctoral dissertation examines the stable isotope and reproductive ecology of termites of the genus Macrotermes in conjunction with the foraging behavior of termite-fishing chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in order to evaluate hypotheses on hominin foraging behavior associated with termites, as well as to gain novel insight into the cognitive abilities associated with termite-fishing behavior in extant chimpanzee communities. In chapter 2 I expanded the search for evidence that Plio-Pleistocene hominins may have consumed termites similar to what we can observe in many extant chimpanzee societies as isotope data from some hominin taxa seem to suggest. I add to this conversation by investigating the isotopic ecology of a candidate termite prey, Macrotermes spp., occupying modern savanna-woodland habitats. In Chapter 3 I investigated and described the seasonal constraints on termite-fishing tool use at a savanna-woodland site in western Tanzania related to the reproductive ecology of the chimpanzees preferred termite prey, Macrotermes spp. I observed how the ephemeral nature of this embedded resource imposes a considerable challenge to foraging primates. Chapter 4 explores how a community of chimpanzees in this same savanna-woodland site intelligently navigates this temporal obstacle through insight into their environment. The convergence of these studies highlights how the interaction between chimpanzee and termite prey presents the opportunity to test various hypotheses on hominin dietary ecology, seasonal factors affecting great ape tool-use variation, and primate foraging cognition.