No time to rest: How the effects of climate change on nest decay threaten the conservation of apes in the wild

Water scooping: tool use by a wild bonobo (Pan paniscus) at LuiKotale, a case report

Tool use diversity is often considered to differentiate our two closest living relatives: the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (P. paniscus). Chimpanzees appear to have the largest repertoire of tools amongst nonhuman primates, and in this species, many forms of tool use enhance food and water acquisition. In captivity, bonobos seem as adept as chimpanzees in tool use complexity, including in the foraging context. However, in the wild, bonobos have only been observed engaging in habitual tool use in the contexts of comfort, play, self-directed behaviour and communication, whilst no tool-assisted food acquisition has been reported. Whereas captive bonobos use tools for drinking, so far, the only report from the wild populations comes down to four observations of moss sponges used at Lomako. Here, we present the first report of tool use in the form of water scooping by a wild bonobo at LuiKotale. An adult female was observed and videotaped whilst using an emptied Cola chlamydantha pod to scoop and drink water from a stream. We discuss the conditions for such observations and the importance of looking out for rare behaviours and attempt to put the observation into the context of the opportunity versus necessity hypotheses. By adding novel information on tool use, our report contributes to the ongoing efforts to differentiate population-specific traits in the behavioural ecology of the bonobo.

Bonobo mothers have elevated urinary cortisol levels during early but not mid or late lactation

In mammals, the costs of reproduction are biased towards females. Lactation is particularly energetically expensive, and behavioral and physiological data indicate that maternal effort during lactation induces energetic stress. Another source of stress in females is male aggression directed towards them when they are cycling. Evaluating the costs of reproduction in wild and mobile animals can be a challenging task, and requires detailed information on state-dependent parameters such as hormone levels. Glucocorticoid (GC) levels are indicative of nutritional and social stress, and are widely used to assess the costs of reproduction. We investigated variation in urinary levels of cortisol, the main GC in female bonobos (Pan paniscus), between and within reproductive stages. Female chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the closest living relative of the bonobos, are often exposed to intense aggression from males, which causes a significant rise in their cortisol levels during the phase of their maximum fecundity. In bonobos, males compete for access to fertile females, but aggressive male mating strategies are absent in this species. Therefore, we expected that GC levels of cycling female bonobos would be lower than those of lactating females. Due to the long period of offspring care in bonobos, we expected that GC levels would remain elevated into the late stage of lactation, when immatures gain body weight but may still be nursed and carried by their mothers. We found elevated urinary GC levels only during the early stage of lactation. The GC levels of cycling females did not differ from those in the mid or late lactation stage. Behavioral strategies of female bonobos may allow them to compensate for the elevated energetic demands of lactation and prolonged maternal care.