Potential for female kin associations in wild western gorillas despite female dispersal

Brenda J. Bradley, Diane M. Doran-Sheehy, Linda Vigilant
Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences
Volume 274, Number 1622 / September 07, 2007
pp: 2179-2185

Get the full article here

Female philopatry and male dispersal are the norm for most mammals, and females that remain in their natal region often derive foraging or social benefits from proximity to female kin. However, other factors, such as constraints on group size or a shortage of potential mates, may promote female dispersal even when female kin associations would be beneficial. In these cases, female kin associations might develop, not through female philopatry, but through female emigration to the same group. To date, little attention has been focused on the potential for kin-biased behaviour between females in female-dispersing species. Here we investigate the genetic relationships among adults in eight wild groups of unhabituated western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) at the Mondika Research Center using microsatellite genotyping of DNA collected from hair and faeces. We found that almost half (40%) of adult females had an adult female relative in the same group and average within-group relatedness among females was significantly higher than that expected under a model of random dispersal. This provides the first genetic evidence that females can maintain social associations with female relatives in spite of routine natal and secondary dispersal. In addition, we show that females appear to avoid related silverback males when making dispersal decisions, suggesting that a strategy of non-random female dispersal may also function to avoid inbreeding.

Jessica the Hippo

Very Important Scientist of the Month - Cleve Hicks

Found: the giant lion-eating chimps of the magic forest
From the Guardian

James Randerson, science correspondent
Saturday July 14, 2007

Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla.

Their location at the centre of one of the bloodiest conflicts on the planet, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has meant that the mystery apes have been little studied by western scientists. Reaching the region means negotiating the shifting fortunes of warring rebel factions, and the heart of the animals' range is deep in impenetrable forest.

But despite the difficulties, a handful of scientists have succeeded in studying the animals. Early speculation that the apes may be some yeti-like new species or a chimp/gorilla hybrid proved unfounded, but the truth has turned out to be in many ways even more fascinating. They are actually a population of super-sized chimps with a unique culture - and it seems, a taste for big cat flesh.

The most detailed and recent data comes from Cleve Hicks, at the University of Amsterdam, who has spent 18 months in the field watching the Bili apes - named after a local town - since 2004. His team's most striking find came after one of his trackers heard chimps calling for several days from the same spot.

When he investigated he came across a chimp feasting on the carcass of a leopard. Mr Hicks cannot be sure the animal was killed by the chimp, but the find lends credence to the apes' lion-eating reputation.

"What we have found is this completely new chimpanzee culture," said Mr Hicks. Previously, researchers had only managed to snatch glimpses of the animals or take photos of them using camera traps. But Mr Hicks used local knowledge to get closer to them and photograph them.

"We were told of this sort of fabled land out west by one of our trackers who goes out there to fish," said Mr Hicks whose project is supported by the Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation. "I call it the magic forest. It is a very special place."

Getting there means a gruelling 40km (25-mile) trek through the jungle, from the nearest road, not to mention navigating croc-infested rivers. But when he arrived he found apes without their normal fear of humans. Chimps near the road flee immediately at the sight of people because they know the consequences of a hunter's rifle, but these animals were happy to approach him. "The further away from the road the more fearless the chimps got," he added.

Mr Hicks reports that he found a unique chimp culture. For example, unlike their cousins in other parts of Africa the chimps regularly bed down for the night in nests on the ground. Around a fifth of the nests he found were there rather than in the trees.

"How can they get away with sleeping on the ground when there are lions, leopards, golden cats around as well as other dangerous animals like elephants and buffalo?" said Mr Hicks.

"I don't like to paint them as being more aggressive, but maybe they prey on some of these predators and the predators kind of leave them alone." He is keen to point out though that they don't howl at the moon.

"The ground nests were very big and there was obviously something very unusual going on there. They are not unknown elsewhere but very unusual," said Colin Groves, an expert on primate morphology at the Australian National University in Canberra who has observed the nests in the field.

Prof Groves believes that the Bili apes should prompt a radical rethink of the family tree of chimp sub-species. He has proposed that primatologists should now recognise five different sub-divisions instead of the current four.

Mr Hicks said the animals also have what he calls a "smashing culture" - a blunt but effective way of solving problems. He has found hundreds of snails and hard-shelled fruits smashed for food, seen chimps carrying termite mounds to rocks to break them open and also found a turtle that was almost certainly smashed apart by chimps.

Like chimp populations in other parts of Africa, the Bili chimps use sticks to fish for ants, but here the tools are up to 2.5 metres long.

The most exciting thing about this population of chimps though is that it is much bigger than anyone realised and may be one of the largest remaining continuous populations of the species left in Africa. Mr Hicks and his colleague Jeroen Swinkels surveyed an area of 7,000 square kilometres and found chimps everywhere. Their unique culture was uniform throughout.

However, the future for the Bili apes is far from secure. "Things are not promising," said Karl Ammann, an independent wildlife photographer who began investigating the apes 1996. "The absence of a strong central government has resulted in most of the region becoming more independent and lawless. In conservation terms this is a disaster."

Update: Researchers fight poaching with presence, not guns

Researchers fight poaching with presence, not guns
Gottfried Hohmann

From Nature Correspondence

Sir

Your News Feature 'Peaceful primates, violent acts' (Nature 447, 635–636; 2007) reports on the conflicts that arise when wild animals studied for research are threatened by poaching and the bush-meat trade. Regional and international conservation organizations can help, but sometimes individual researchers feel that more immediate measures are required. Local presence has been shown to be one of the most efficient conservation actions, and many research programmes, including the bonobo research project of the Max Planck Institute, have taken risks in continuing to work even when unrest prevails.

You tell the story of Jonas Eriksson, a PhD student who left his academic career to engage in an unusual form of conservation action. From your report, readers may have gained the impression that Eriksson has been engaging in firefights using guns obtained illegally, but this was not the case. The aim of the project was to strengthen the capacity of the guards of the Congolese wildlife authority (ICCN) and to lead joint patrols of villagers and park guards into areas of Salonga National Park where poachers operate. The guards from ICCN are armed with automatic weapons that are owned by the wildlife authority, with a mandate to use them for law enforcement.

We emphasize that the anti-poaching project is neither typical nor representative of the work of the Max Planck Society. Researchers at LuiKotal, in Salonga National Park, have never been armed. Carrying arms would violate national and international laws, and would be counterproductive to the goals of our research.

Conservation and research have to go hand in hand, without weapons. The pressures that we can exert are physical presence and a strong motivation to protect those who provide us with the information we seek. This is what Eriksson did when he started his Salonga mission, and it is what other researchers from our institute do at their field sites across the African continent.

Canadian Creationists: "Wow, Oh Boy"

What does that Darwin know anyway?
REBECCA DUBE
From the Globe and Mail - Tue. June 26. 07

If your picture of creationists is limited to barefoot hillbillies and Republican U.S. presidential candidates, it's time for your thinking to evolve.

New polls show that a larger share of Americans - 53 per cent - believe in evolution than do Ontario residents, only 51 per cent of whom believe that "human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years."

Over all, 59 per cent of Canadians said they believe in evolution, according to the Angus Reid poll of 1,088 adults conducted June 12-13. Twenty-two per cent agreed that "God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years," and 19 per cent told pollsters they weren't sure.

Even those who say they believe in evolution may be confused about what that means exactly. The poll found 42 per cent of Canadians agree that dinosaurs and humans co-existed on earth - but evolutionary theory says non-avian dinosaurs died out about 60 million years before humans evolved in their current form.

"Wow. Oh boy," responded Pam Willoughby, an anthropology professor at the University of Alberta. "We're obviously not getting our message across."

While the evidence for evolution, such as fossil records dating back millions of years, is clear and persuasive, Prof. Willoughby acknowledged that creationism has one big advantage over evolutionary theory: certainty. Even though evolution is a strong theory with overwhelming scientific support, it doesn't offer the 100-per-cent certainty of religious doctrine.

"Religion gives people a way of explaining the world," Prof. Willoughby said. "We're not in the belief business, we're in the science business."

She was cheered to learn that roughly one in five Canadians aren't sure whether they believe in evolution or creationism.

"We might be able to convince a few more," she said.

Don't count on it, said Ian Juby, a Chalk River, Ont.-based consultant to creationist museums. He says evolution opponents are gaining steam.

"Part of it is the controversy, and people getting fed up with having their views stifled," Mr. Juby said. "There are lines being drawn in the sand."

People whose religious beliefs lead them to creationism have more resources than ever to back them up these days. Mr. Juby estimates a dozen new creationist museums have opened in North America in the past five years.

He consulted on the Big Valley Creation Science Museum, which opened earlier this month in Alberta. Thousands of people have visited the state-of-the-art Creation Museum in Kentucky since it opened last month, not long after three of 10 Republican U.S. presidential candidates declared they don't believe in evolution.

According to the Angus Reid poll, Canadians who are younger than 34, have an income of more than $50,000 a year or are university-educated are significantly more likely to believe in evolution.

Quebeckers embrace evolution more than other Canadians, with 71 per cent saying they believe humans evolved over millions of years and only 9 per cent reporting they believe in creationism.

The poll demonstrates how secularization during Quebec's Quiet Revolution in the 1960s still resonates today, said Craig Worden, vice-president of public affairs for Angus Reid.

The results of the evolution poll "may speak to a need in our education system to speak to history that predates the 20th century," Mr. Worden said.

"There is a large segment of the population that is confused."

Evolution skeptics

A poll asked 1,088 adult Canadians what they believe about the origin of man.

Evolution: Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years

British Columbia 65%
Alberta 58%
Manitoba/Saskatchewan 56%
Ontario 51%
Quebec 71%
Atlantic 53%
Canada 59%
United States* 53%
(*Separate poll by USA Today of 1,007 American adults)

Creation: God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years

British Columbia 21%
Alberta 28%
Manitoba/Saskatchewan 33%
Ontario 26%
Quebec 9%
Atlantic 26%
Canada 22%

Not Sure

British Columbia 15%
Alberta 14%
Manitoba/Saskatchewan 11%
Ontario 23%
Quebec 20%
Atlantic 21%
Canada 19%

SOURCE: http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20070619/wxlcreation19.html

Fun at the Creation Museum!!!!

Taken from Blue Grass Roots
(Image from DitchMickey.com)

This Saturday, I made my much anticipated field trip to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum, a $27 million monstrosity devoted to religious fanaticism, disguised as “science”.

Two of my heretical friends and I ventured an hour north up I-75 from Lexington, just short of Cincinnati, to discover a museum full of shocking idiocy and unintentional humor.

Early in the museum, the visitor is given advice on the proper mind frame to have for your visit: “Don’t think, just listen and believe”. As you can see in the picture below, Human Reason is the enemy and God’s Word is the hero. Descartes represents Human Reason, saying “I think, therefore I am”. But God tells us there no need to waste your beautiful mind, for God says “I am that I am”.

So logic, reason and science are Bad; blind faith is Good.

“Reason” says the planets formed many billions of years ago. God’s Word says only 6,000 years ago.

“Reason” says the evolution began 14 billion years ago. God’s Word says creation began 6,000.years ago.

After showing the “days” (literally days) of creation, we venture into the 6th day of creation, when we meet Adam and Eve. A video recreation below shows how Adam was created. In about 3 seconds, a burst of wind swept up funnel of dirt and, “wah-la”, it turned into Adam. Oh, and the actor playing Adam? He happens to be a naughty, naughty, naughty boy.

Keep Reading and with AWESOME PICTURES at Blue Grass Roots.com

The chimpanzees of the Mahale mountains