What determines where savanna chimpanzees build their nests?

Late lunch talk by Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar and Trond Reitan.

Like all great apes, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) build beds or platforms of vegetation called nests. Nesting selectivity in chimpanzees is poorly understood. To contribute to such understanding, data on chimpanzee nesting patterns were collected in Issa, Ugalla, western Tanzania. The aims of this study were to determine if the physical characteristics of individual trees and sites on the landscape influence the chance of being selected by the chimpanzees for building their nests, and if so, which characteristics determine nesting choice in the two different spatial scales (individual trees and sites). We developed a novel statistical test that takes into account the study design. We examine whether individual tree choice can explain the larger scale pattern we found.

Published Jan. 26, 2015 11:49 AM - Last modified Mar. 8, 2021 3:09 PM