Toward an Experimental Socioecology of Primates

Abstract

Like many other fields, the study of primate social ecology has developed through at least three distinct phases (as reviewed in Terborgh and Janson, 1986). First and earliest, detailed descriptive studies added to our basic natural history knowledge of primates in general (e.g., Struhsaker, 1969; Kinzey, 1977). Explanatory models tended to be based on single species and many competing hypotheses were advanced based on distinct study systems. For instance, the ecology and social behavior of savannah-dwelling baboons were studied as analogies for the ecology and behavior of savannah-dwelling early hominids (e.g., DeVore and Washburn, 1963), or the thick molar enamel of capuchin monkeys was investigated as a model for the thick enamel of hominid dentitions (Kinzey, 1974). Second, as enough descriptive data were amassed, it became possible to begin comparative studies, at first either searching for broad patterns relating ecology and social organization (e.g., Crook and Gartlan, 1966) or testing very general hypotheses linking group size and ranging behavior to diet (Clutton-Brock and Harvey, 1977). Third, across-species compri- sons and detailed descriptive studies focused on hypothetico-deductive tests of specific theories, with the goal of distinguishing (and perhaps eliminating) some of the many competing hypotheses to explain social and ecological variation among primates, including the roles of predation and within- versus between-group competition (e.g., van Schaik, 1983; Terborgh, 1983; Janson, 1990).