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| Immigrant male TJ forms a coalition with juvenile male Kahlo |
Quantitative genetics: During her postdoctoral research at Bielefeld University, Irene Godoy's research focused primarily on quantitative genetics, using animal models to disentangle genetic effects from environmental effects and maternal effects on phenotypic outcomes (in this case, propensity to be social). These efforts used the long-term data set of the LBMP.
Godoy, I., Korsten, P. & Perry, S.E.* 2024. Mother of all bonds: influences on spatial association across the lifespan in capuchins. Developmental Science, e13486. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13486
Godoy, I., Korsten, P., & Perry, S.* 2022. Genetic, maternal, and environmental influences on sociality in a pedigreed primate population. Heredity 129:203-214. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-022-00558-6
Cultural evolution dynamics and the factors influencing learning strategies in capuchins:
During 2023-2024, we have focused our data collection efforts on better understanding the role of individual traits (such as personality, age, sex and dominance rank) and dyadic traits (age differences, relationship quality) on the propensity to invent and transmit new behavioral traits. This work focuses on just two social groups: Flakes and Minstrel's. This work is funded primarily by the Leakey Foundation.
The theoretical and methodological frameworks to be used in this and the following project are described here:
Perry, S., Carter, A., Smolla, M., Akçay, E., Nöbel, S., Foster, J.G., & Healy, S.D. 2021. Not by transmission alone: the role of invention in cultural evolution. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B. 376: 20200049. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0049
Perry, S., Carter, A., Smolla, M., Nöbel, S., Foster, J.G. (2022). What makes inventions become traditions? Annual Review of Anthropology 51:419-36. DOI:10.1146/annurev-anthro-012121-012127
Preprint doi: 10.31235/osf.io/8ma5q
Behavioral flexibility and age-related changes in learning strategies across the lifespan: In 2019, we focused our research efforts on understanding how behavioral repertoires change across the lifespan. In this study, we extended our developmental study (which started in 2001-2006, funded by the MPI-EVAN), using longitudinal data to investigate how individuals change with age with regard to their propensities to innovate and learn socially from others, across a wide span of behavioral domains. This research will help us understand both how learning strategies shift with experience and changing life circumstances, and how the age structure of populations affects social transmission dynamics. In 2019-2020, data collection for this topic was funded by the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation and the National Geographic Society. During 2020-2023, NSF provided additional funding to examine the roles of infant-alloparent interactions and the age structure of groups in shaping learning strategies. We plan to wrap up data collection for this project next year (2025), via financial support from UCLA.
The papers below are relevant to this topic:
Perry, S. 2020. Behavioural variation and learning across the lifespan in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B. 375: 20190494. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0494
Perry, S., Barrett, B.J., & Godoy, I. 2017. Older, sociable capuchins (Cebus capucinus) invent more social behaviors, but younger monkeys innovate more in other contexts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(30):7806-7813
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1620739114
Nutritional ecology: In 2022-3, Alexa Duchesneau, Yale PhD candidate and former field assistant for the monkey project, collected data from two social groups for her dissertation work on the foods female monkeys eat at different stages of their life history. She will use a nutritional geometry approach to analyze shifts in their feeding strategies as they mature. This knowledge will be retroactively applied to the LBMP's developmental data set (2001-present day) to better understand the long-term impact of individuals' nutritional strategies on survival and reproduction.
Group movement: Former data collection volunteers Odd Jacobson (now a PhD candidate at University of Konstanz) and Brendan Barrett (who did his PhD work and some of his postdoctoral work on Lomas data) collaborated with LBMP director S. Perry and members of the MPI for Animal Behavior to analyze the long-term data set on sleep sites and group movement at Lomas Barbudal.
Jacobson, O.T., Crofoot, M.C., Perry, S., Hench, K. Barrett, B.J., & Finerty G. 2023. The importance of representative sampling for home range estimation in field primatology. International Journal of Primatology DOI: 10.1007/s10764-023-00398-z
A second paper is forthcoming at Ecology Letters:
Jacobson, O.T. **, Barrett, B.J. **, Perry, S.E. **, Finerty, G.E., Tiedeman, K.M., Crofoot, M.C. (in press, 2024). A new approach to geostatistical synthesis of historical records reveals capuchin spatial responses to climate and demographic change. Ecology Letters
Social norms: We are currently investigating dyad- and
group-specific behaviors related to individuals' understanding of the rules of
social life. This research has two primary components: (1) investigation
of the quirky dyadic rituals that capuchins invent for testing the quality of
their social bonds, and (2) investigation of the question of whether capuchins
exhibit social norms. We define "social norms" as moralized,
group-specific, socially learned, shared understandings of the rules by which
social life should be conducted, which are maintained via moral emotions that
inspire impartial third parties to punish violators of these rules. This work was
funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation's Diverse Intelligences
Initiative.
Perry, S. & Smolla, M. 2020. Capuchin monkey rituals: an interdisciplinary study of form and function. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B. 375: 20190422. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0422
preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.21.958223v1
Coalitions and alliance formation: Susan Perry and her UCLA graduate students Tlaoli Fuentes and Kotrina Kajokaite are studying capuchin politics, coalitionary psychology and life histories. Coalitions are such an important part of daily life for capuchins, and alliances are necessary for achieving high reproductive success. We are interested in studying how the monkeys communicate their requests for assistance, and how they decide with whom to side in these conflicts. We are very grateful to the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation and the National Geographic Society for funding the most recent data collection efforts for this project.
The most recent of our publications on this topic is:
Kajokaite, K., Whalen, A., Panchanathan, K. & Perry,
S. 2019. White-faced capuchins use both rank and relationship quality to
recruit allies. Anim. Behav.
154:161-169. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9z51s81k
Inbreeding avoidance: Irene Godoy (who received her PhD from UCLA in 2015, before teaching at Radboud University in the Netherlands and becoming a Humboldt Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Bielefeld University) conducted her Ph.D. research on the mechanisms by which fathers avoid inbreeding with their reproductive aged daughters and granddaughters, even when they co-reside with them as alpha males. Her research was funded by L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, NSF, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. She continues to publish papers in this area. Her recent papers include:
Godoy, I., Vigilant, L. & Perry, S. 2016. Inbreeding risk, avoidance and costs in a group-living primate, Cebus capucinus. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 70:1601–1611, DOI: 10.1007/s00265-016-2168-1
Godoy, I., Vigilant, L. & Perry, S. 2016. Cues to kinship and close relatedness during infancy in white-faced capuchin monkeys, Cebus capucinus. Animal Behaviour 116:139-151. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2708m06z
Social learning and food processing: Brendan Barrett (who received his PhD from UC-Davis in 2017) conducted his field research on the role of social learning in the acquisition of skill in opening panama fruits. Brendan and Susan are also collaborating in analysis of a long-term data set on the role of social learning in the processing of Sloanea fruits. Brendan’s PhD research was funded by American Society of Primatologists, an NSF graduate fellowship, and the ARCS Foundation Northern California Chapter. The first paper to emerge from this project is:
Barrett, B.J., McElreath, R., & Perry, S.E. 2017. Payoff-biased social learning underlies the diffusion of novel extractive foraging traditions in a wild primate. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 284: 20170358. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0358
Male migration and female counter-strategies: The funding for this 4-year project (funded by NSF grant 0848360, the Leakey Foundation, and the National Geographic Society) ended in August, 2013, though data collection and analysis are still underway and form a part of several graduate student thesis projects. Two papers stemming from this project include:
Perry, S., Godoy, I., Lammers, W., & Lin, A. 2017. Impact of personality traits and early life experience on timing of emigration and rise to alpha male status for wild male white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus) at Lomas Barbudal Biological Reserve, Costa Rica. Behaviour 154(2):195-226 https://escholarship.org/content/qt3d6737c6/qt3d6737c6_noSplash_15a324069380a54b912f6cf546b63d1e.pdf
Schaebs, F., Perry, S., Cohen, D., Mundry, R. & Deschner, T. 2017. Social and demographic correlates of male androgen levels in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus). Amer. J. Primatol. DOI:10.1002/ajp.22653