PSGB Spring Meeting 2000

Primates: our past, their future

A public meeting presented by The Primate Society of Great Britain
in collaboration with The Natural History Museum, London.

PROGRAMME

Tickets cost £10 and are available from Mark Collard, Department of Anthropology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT (Tel: 0171-380-7842, e-mail: m.collard@ucl.ac.uk). Please make cheques payable to The Primate Society of Great Britainand include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Also, please note that numbers are strictly limited, and that tickets will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.

Meeting Report

The year 2000 provides important opportunities for societies to consider how they will present and celebrate aspects of their interests. The PSGB was represented in very fine measure by its public meeting on April 1st under the title Primates: Our Past, Their Future. It was sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and the Natural History Museum, London, and held in the Flett Lecture Theatre of the Museum as part of their two week Millennium celebrations entitled Natures Treasure House. Both the diversity of the topics chosen and the syntheses of issues that the speakers addressed, made this a truly fitting celebration of contemporary knowledge and conceptual developments within primatology. Moreover, the talks were presented in ways that that made the material accessible and enjoyable to people with very different background information. This was especially important because a main focus of the occasion was upon the public understanding of science.

Liz Rogers set the stage for much of the meeting. She treated us to an eloquent and enthusiastic global journey that emphasised the diversity of primate habitats and ways in which the primates use them. The richness of tropical forest habitats, riverine and swamp forests, and extreme habitats such as mountains were all represented. A variety of behavioural strategies was discussed with emphasis given to primate diets, together with the characteristics and constraints that operate in different primate groups. A very nice feature of the talk was that a high proportion of the illustrations were slides taken by Liz in the course of her own field work; others were borrowed from friends and colleagues. This gave a personal feel to the whole presentation on Primates in Nature. There was a wealth of material with something special for everyone. I particularly liked the gorillas eating salty water plants in the swampy "bias" in Ndoki forest in Congo.

It was a great pleasure for the Society to welcome John Fleagle to the meeting. Moreover, his talk on the Evolution of Primate Adaptation was a superb example of the large scale integration of information that is increasingly a feature of contemporary thinking in primatology. The diversity in size, locomotion, dietary adaptations and social organisation among the 65 genera and 300 or so species of the primates has been a major focus of interest for many years, albiet that much of the information has been obtained from small scale studies in the sense of single species. In recent years, however, studies of primate communities in different biogeographical regions have begun to collate differences and similarities in different areas in ways that facilitate large scale fundamental questions. John FleagleÕs own studies in this regard, as those that he has carried out with Kaye Reed, are substantial investigations into the ecological and phylogenetic divergence of many primate species in different localities in major geographical regions. The results are elegant quantitative demonstrations that both biogeography and phylogenetic history have contributed importantly to the patterns of ecological diversity of living primates in different regions. The studies show for example, that ecological and phylogenetic distance are positively correlated. Species that are less closely related tend to be ecologically more different. Again, faunas in Africa, Asia and Madagascar that are more diverse phylogenetically are also more diverse ecologically than those in South America that are less phylogenetically diverse. Interestingly, the relationship between ecological distance and phylogenetic distance for individual faunas indicates different patterns of evolutionary diversity in the different biogeographical regions. The correlation is much lower in the areas of South America and Madagascar where extant lineages seem to be the result of relatively rapid and explosive evolutionary radiations, whereas the correlation is strong for faunas in Asia and Africa where they have originated at successive times over a longer period. There was a flurry of activity in the Museum Bookshop during the lunch break as conference participants hunted for copies of JohnÕs book on Primate Communities that he edited with Janson and Reed for CUP in 1999 - a true testimony to the interest that the talk had generated.

To the non specialist, general discussions about studies of genetic structure in the context of the complexities of primate social behaviour are understandably difficult to assimilate. In the hands of Mike Bruford, however, there is no problem! In his talk on Primate Genetics and Evolution, the history of techniques in primate molecular ecology, together with their contemporary applications were explained with admirable clarity. Importantly, the recent development of non-invasive genotyping techniques that involve the amplification of DNA from faeces and hair samples "and with the availability through the human genome mapping project, of vast numbers of polymorphic microsatellite systems for primates has transformed the specificity of our information in long standing questions in genetic relatedness and differentiation that are the core of evolutionary ecology. One of the two case studies given involved genetic data extracted from faecal material with regard paternity and dominance rank in savannah baboons; data that correspond well to behavioural observations. A second example is somehow especially pleasing! It concerned studies of bimaturism among Sumatran male orang-utans for which a number of hypotheses with regard reproduction have long been proposed. In the event, it happens that the majority of offspring are fathered by unflanged males! In all it is clearly important to appreciate the developments that have been made recently, and the questions that may now be answered. We have certainly come a long way, as mike emphasised, from the somewhat restrictive perspectives of concentrating interests of genetic structure upon phylogenetic relationships. There ended the morning session ably chaired by Leslie Aiello.

The afternoon began with Robin DunbarÕs talk on The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes. This gave us another stimulating example of large scale integration of information within primatology. In this case, the central interest was in influences upon group size among primates. There has been a variety of discussions about both ecological and cognitive influences in this regard, and Robin has contributed to these substantially. In this paper he addressed two areas of study. In the first, he has been concerned to develop a series of systems models that predict group size among Old World species. Critically, time constraints, as with the growth of infants, is the major factor that limits group size. Moreover, the risk of predation is the main influence upon minimum group size at the habitat-specific level. Further, the models facilitate the prediction of ways in which time budgets of activity are influenced by climatic variables that influence the quality of the habitat, and limit the number of animals that forage together. So far, specific models have been produced for some few species, each of which is robust, and with differences between them accounted for solely in terms of dietary characteristics among the taxa. The models can also predict geographical distribution of the taxa, and explain patterns of ecological separation among them. In all, this approach considers the diversity of primate social systems in the context of a number of key points-as with diet and reproduction, that are expressed in different ecological conditions; some few general principles may be generated and lead to the development of models to explain different social systems.

In his second area of study, Robin discussed the potential influence of brain size-with specific reference to neocortex size as a further constraint upon group size. There are many interesting possibilities here when we consider cognitive processes that are correlated with the size of the neocortex, and aspects of complex social behaviour among primates. There is a variety of social skills, as well as the size of grooming cliques for instance, that have attracted recent attention, and there is much interest in areas such as tactical deception and theory of mind. Moreover, although it is not possible as yet, as Robin emphasised, to be precise about cognitive processes that are involved in the relationship between neocortical size and group size, there is a number of fruitful lines of research that reflect the large brains and socially sophisticated lives of primates.

Our Millennium meeting included a talk that discussed aspects of human evolution. This reflects an enormous increase in interest and information from many interdisciplinary perspectives in recent years, as well as the important role that studies of human evolution have played in the development of primatology-historically. In this case Steven Mithen discussed The Origins of Language and Culture. Both terms are notoriously difficult to define of course, and he was concerned to outline principle features of each. Moreover, in contrast with the views of many primatologists for example, he regarded both culture and language as exclusively human. Alternatively, he recognised the complexity of vocal communication among the primates, as well as the widespread occurrence of behavioural traditions, and considered that these are bases from which distinctively human types of culture and language may be traced. The main impact of the talk was to take us through a series of steps that examined the physical and social developments among humans that would facilitate language and culture. He began with a summary of the main attributes of primate behaviour and cognition that may be ascribed with confidence to our earliest ancestors, and continued through aspects of the fossil and archaeological records over a period of some 3 million years ago until as recently as 10, 000 years. It is a fascinating journey to consider the relative influences of physical structure, changes in diet, the use of tools, technical skills and forms of decorative art for example, in the development of communication and cognitive abilities-with the environmental challenges of the last ice age providing the last thrust for the evolution of modern culture.

Finally, Guy Cowlishaw gave us a stimulating and comprehensive talk about conservation that he called The Future Of Primates In The Wild. He reviewed the processes of extinction and emphasised the critical influences of habitat disturbance and hunting upon primate populations. It is of interest with regard the biology of different species as well as from practical points of view for instance, that different species may show different degrees of vulnerability to the same environmental disturbance. A good example is that logging appears to influence the vulnerability of frugivorous species more than it does non-frugivorous species. Further, the impact of commercial hunting goes well beyond the needs of subsistence hunting, and has devastating influences upon primates especially when combined with extensive logging operations that facilitate access to the animals. It is always depressing to be reminded that nearly half of all species of the primates are threatened with extinction. However, the positive influences include the international strategies for conservation- as with the IUCN Primate Specialist Groups together with their regional Action Plans. The main focus of attention here is upon those species that are highly threatened, and upon areas in which there is a high diversity of primates. The use of protected areas, sustainable utilisation, and translocation for restocking or reintroduction are commonly occurring methods to implement primate strategies for primate conservation. There is much discussion about the viability of all these methods. There are good examples and bad examples, but there are hopeful signs. Tourism as a form of the sustainable use of primate populations, and captive breeding as with the drill in Nigeria were given as hopeful cases in point.

We had the pleasure of attending a splendidly organised meeting with excellent speakers that presented stimulating material , in a comfortable and impressive venue. As with so many things that are very well done however, they may appear deceptively simple to arrange. In this context it is a pleasure to thank Mark Collard, and those to whom he acknowledged his own thanks, on behalf of all of us, for his excellent choices and very hard work to make the day so successful.

Hilary O. Box.
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