4.3 Article

The diet of open-habitat chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the Issa valley, western Tanzania

Journal

JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
Volume 112, Issue -, Pages 57-69

Publisher

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.08.016

Keywords

Great ape diet; Savanna-woodland mosaic; Food availability; Hominin; East Africa

Funding

  1. Carnegie Trust for Universities of Scotland
  2. Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation
  3. L.S.B. Leakey Foundation
  4. Wenner Gren Foundation
  5. National Science Foundation
  6. Ruggles Gates Fund for Biological Anthropology, University of California, San Diego
  7. UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA)

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Comparative data on the diets of extant primates inform hypotheses about hominin resource use. Historically, data describing chimpanzee diets stem primarily from forest-dwelling communities, and we lack comparative data from chimpanzees that live in mosaic habitats that more closely resemble those reconstructed for Plio-Pleistocene hominins. We present data on the diet of a partially-habituated community of open habitat chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) from the Issa valley, western Tanzania, collected over a four-year period. Based mostly on macroscopic faecal analysis, Issa chimpanzees consumed a minimum of 69 plant species. There was no relationship between plant consumption and either fruit availability or feeding tree density; the most frequently consumed plant species were found in riverine forests, with woodland species consumed more frequently during the late dry season. We conclude by contextualising these findings with those of other open-habitat chimpanzee sites, and also by discussing how our results contribute towards reconstructions of early hominin exploitation of mosaic landscapes. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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