Chimpanzee Behavioral Ecology

Research at Kanyawara covers a broad range of topics related to reproductive and life history strategies, and social relationships. Much of my current research is focused on patterns of aggression in relation to food availability, age, sex and endocrine status. I travel to Kibale twice per year in order to collect focal data on chimpanzee behavior, and to supervise long-term data collection. Field assistants from the chimpanzee project make daily observations, recording basic information about party composition, diet, health status, geographical location, social interactions and interactions with other species. Phenological data are collected twice per month from a trail established in 1988. These long-term behavioral, ecological, demographic, and endocrine data are permitting us to address questions about long-term, infrequent, and complexly related processes in chimpanzee behavioral biology. Some current research questions include:

• What is the relationship between dominance status, age, aggression and reproductive success in males and females?

• How important are coalitionary relationships for male dominance striving?
• How do patterns of female attractiveness influence male mating competition?
  
  
• How important is male coercion in influencing female mating patterns?

Adult male Monk at Ngogo, Kibale National Park   
© M.N. Muller