Leveda Cheng

The Adaptive Relationships Framework illustrating how broad socioecological pressures shape the social solutions animals use to meet these challenges, and how these lead to social strategies and emergent structures that help them gain access to those solutions.

Social relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*?

In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts.

tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7

Dwarf mongoose

Rhesus macaques grooming

Meerkat

❓ Want to join us?
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork

👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🙏Share widely

#ESHE2025
Rhianna Drummond-Clarke ‘First documentation and quantification of wild chimpanzee rock climbing’
Camera traps, Issa Valley TZ & Moyen Bafing, Guinea chimps

Rock vs tree climbing: more dynamic movements, biomech diff locomotor modes, reaching further- role of uneven substrates!
Amazing 😍

📢JOB alert📢
Application for the camp manager position at the @taichimpproject.bsky.social is open now. We seek a new camp manager starting on January 1, 2026, for 2+1 years (3rd year optional) working with and for wild chimpanzees in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire.👇

emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/I...

Transmission networks of long-term and short-term knowledge in a foraging society Abstract. Cultural transmission across generations is key to cumulative cultural evolution. While several mechanisms—such as vertical, horizontal, and obli

💙New paper!💙

How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society?

With @danielredhead.bsky.social
we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

🌍✨ Still time to apply! The MBCP is looking for a Field Site Manager to join us in one of the most beautiful parks on the planet—work with an amazing team, semi-habituated chimps, and boost your project management chops for a career in #conservation or #research.

Info ➡️ bit.ly/MBCPmanager2025

two 4-year PhD positions in the Ape Behaviour & Ecology Group of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Zurich, and the Wild Minds Lab of the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, to study wild chimpanzees and bonobos. The PhD candidates will work within the Creative Ape Project. The overall goal of the project is to enhance our understanding of the evolution of creativity, and to shed light on whether humans are a uniquely 'creative ape'. To do so we will apply a comparative approach, quantifying the creative capacities of wild non-human apes to investigate the underlying drivers that shape creative expression across species. The project explores four interconnected topics: i) Making mavericks, ii) Funny guys and arty-types, iii) Lone ape geniuses, and iv) Creative ape economies. We employ a comprehensive approach that leverages long-term datasets, new field data, detailed manual video-coding, bespoke automated deep-learning models, and advanced modelling, to extract rich information on the ways in which apes solve problems in their daily lives. Excellent collaborative, independent working and time management skills are essential. Previous field experience (incl. behavioural data collection) is required, and experience working in remote places under difficult living conditions is highly recommended. The project will require strong data management and data analysis skills, and 12-18 months of field work split into 2-3 periods. Please submit your application in a single PDF to kathelijne.koops@iea.uzh.ch and clh42@st-andrews.ac.uk – by 4th of August 2025. Feel free to get in touch if you have any inquiries about the positions. Applications should include: 1) cover letter stating your motivation and how your expertise fits the project (max. 1 page), 2) Curriculum Vitae, 3) copy of the highest degree obtained, 4) names and contact details of two referees, and 5) reprints of 1-2 selected publications

A tiny chimpfant looks at the camera with surprise

📣 Join the K/Creative Ape Team 🤓 2 PhDs on Creativity in Wild Chimpanzees & Bonobos; w myself & the v awesome @kathelijnekoops.bsky.social

@snf-fns.ch Uni Zurich @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @efp2026.bsky.social @ips-primatenews.bsky.social @primatesocietygb.bsky.social @primbehavecol.bsky.social 🐵🧪

Socially integrated female chimpanzees have lower offspring mortality In humans and other social mammals, more socially connected females often have higher fitness. Yet evidence linking female sociality to offspring surv…

We have a new paper out in @cp-iscience.bsky.social reporting that more socially integrated female chimpanzees have lower offspring mortality 🧪 #evosky #primates #primatology #anthropology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Join the MacaqueNet family!

We’re looking for a postdoc to study the link between social structure and lifespan across species, using MacaqueNet data and a new life-history database.

Feel free to reach out—I'm happy to chat about MacaqueNet, CRAB, or living in Exeter.

shorturl.at/xyNsL

📣 Calling all audio-book friends 🎧! Fancy a break from reading about dragons 🐉, crime 🕵️‍♂️, or true love ❤️? Did you know we offer audio versions of some of our papers 👩‍🔬 🐒 ? Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing them here! #WildMindsLab #MondayMicDrop #STEM #science

Female solidarity keeps male bonobos in check Study on wild bonobos reveals that females team up to maintain power in their societies

Bonobo societies are famous for being “female dominant.” But females are weaker than males, so how can this be? Study by Barbara Fruth and Martin Surbeck on wild bonobos explains how.

Hint: it has to do with female solidarity.

Paper ▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s42...

www.ab.mpg.de/673281/news_...

I feel the same!! ☺️

Liran Samuni shaking ASAB president Melissa Batesons hand

Liran Samuni in front of a slide with bonobos and chimps reading “What can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about the evolution of cooperation and conflict? Liran Samuni” DPZ Emmy northern programm

Congrats to Christopher Barnard Award winner @lirsamuni.bsky.social ! You’ve done some really fantastic work 😍

There’s also nothing like some chimp and bonobo vocalizations to wake everyone up from the after-lunch slump 🙉🙉🙉 #ASABSpring2025

Social tolerance and role model diversity increase tool use learning opportunities across chimpanzee ontogeny - Communications Biology Social attention patterns suggest that wild chimpanzees learn from their mothers but also from many other tolerant group members across protracted development. This likely enables chimpanzees to learn...

New paper alert 📢📢: study from @taichimpproject.bsky.social shows that young chimpanzees peer more at individuals performing more complex food extraction and they peer more at those who are knowledgeable. Chimpanzees learn from others about extracting their food ...
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

New paper in #ProcB with @alexmesoudi.com, @jfbonnefon.bsky.social, @rmcelreath.bsky.social and Rob Boyd.

We investigate how social learning shapes the way we explore and show that it can even preserve useless theories! 🧵👇

Stress responsiveness in a wild primate predicts survival across an extreme El Niño drought White-faced capuchins with a stronger stress response to previous droughts were more likely to survive a severe El Niño drought.

🧪 Check out our new paper in Sciences Advances! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🐒 When a severe drought hit a population of wild monkeys in Costa Rica, individuals with a stronger stress response were more likely to survive

@jbeehner.bsky.social @irene-godoy.bsky.social

Timing matters for maternal effects on offspring HPA-axis in wild macaque. New paper out from the Assamese macaque Project at Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary!
link here 👇👇
tinyurl.com/yc6k5dvf

@primatenzentrum.bsky.social @unigoettingen.bsky.social @primatecognition.bsky.social @dfg.de

Guidelines for the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals in behavioural research and teaching

Each January, @asab.org journal Animal Behaviour publishes its 'Guidelines for the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals in behavioural research and teaching':
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Please read and implement.
#AnimalEthics #AnimalBehaviour

If you hate statistics like I do, then you'll love my free lectures. Putting science before statistics, 20 lectures from basics of inference & causal modeling to multilevel models & dynamic state space models. It's all free, made with love and sympathy. 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...