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![Average postencounter prey profitability per prey type in unburned (gray, left plot) and burned (orange, right plot) conditions. Whiskers represent a 95% confidence interval and circles represent outliers. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]](profile/Nicole-Herzog-2/publication/283261042/figure/fig1/AS:293955095810059@1447095764407/Average-postencounter-prey-profitability-per-prey-type-in-unburned-gray-left-plot-and.png)
Average postencounter prey profitability per prey type in unburned (gray, left plot) and burned (orange, right plot) conditions. Whiskers represent a 95% confidence interval and circles represent outliers. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
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Objectives:
Anecdotal and formal evidence indicate that primates take advantage of burned landscapes. However, little work has been done to quantify the costs and benefits of this behavior. Using systematic behavioral observations from a population of South African vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops pygerythrus), we evaluate differences in food...
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Many nonhuman primates adjust their behavior and thrive in human-altered habitats, including towns and cities. Studying anthropogenic influences from an animal’s perspective can increase our understanding of their behavioral flexibility, presenting important information for human–wildlife cohabitation management plans. Currently, research on anthro...
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Citations
... While the interpretations we can make for vervet monkeys are more limited due to the low number of detections across our study, the relative abundance patterns observed leave open the possibility that vervet monkeys (~4 kg) may also have been able to largely evade the Cyclone Idai floodwaters through behavioral adjustments. In common with baboons, vervet monkeys are known to be highly adaptable as a species, surviving in harsh conditions and responding flexibly to change (Herzog et al. 2016(Herzog et al. , 2020Jaffe and Isbell 2009;McDougall et al. 2010;Pasternak et al. 2013;Wrangham 1981), such as adjusting their activity to spend more time resting at the expense of feeding to cope in extreme heat (McFarland et al. 2014) and exhibiting foraging flexibility in response to available food resources and the frequency of human interactions in urban environments (Thatcher, Downs, and Koyama 2020). Aside from our own species, baboons and vervet monkeys are the most widely distributed of the African primates, occupying a diverse range of habitats across the African continent (Wolfheim 1983). ...
Objectives
With contemporary, human‐induced climate change at a crisis point, extreme weather events (e.g., cyclones, heatwaves, floods) are becoming more frequent, intense, and difficult to predict. These events can wreak rapid and significant changes on ecosystems; thus, it is imperative to understand how wildlife communities respond to these disruptions. Primates are perceived as being a largely adaptable order, but we often lack the quantitative data to rigorously assess how they are impacted by extreme environmental change. Leveraging detections from a long‐term camera trap survey, this opportunistic study reports the effects of an extreme weather event on a little‐studied population of free‐ranging primates in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.
Materials and Methods
We examined shifts in gray‐footed chacma baboon ( Papio ursinus griseipes ) and vervet monkey ( Chlorocebus pygerythrus ) spatial distribution and relative abundance following Cyclone Idai—a category four tropical cyclone that struck Mozambique in March 2019.
Results
Baboon spatial distributions were impacted in the first month after the cyclone, with more detections in areas where flooding was less severe. Spatial distributions renormalized once floodwaters began to recede. We describe vervet monkey spatial distribution trends, though sample size limitations inhibited statistical analysis. Primate relative abundance did not appear to substantially decrease following the cyclone, suggesting troops were able to adopt behavioral adjustments to evade rising floodwaters.
Discussion
These findings highlight the behavioral flexibility of Gorongosa's primates and their ability to adapt to extreme—if temporary—disruptions, with implications for primate conservation in the Anthropocene and research into how rapid climatic events may have shaped primate evolution.
... Recently burned areas are attractive for many herbivores because the increased visibility makes it easier to avoid predators and the new vegetation cover contains a higher nutrient level; these freshly burned areas also support hunting opportunities for some birds and insects (e.g. Allred et al., 2011;Bird et al., 2008;Eby et al., 2014;Herzog et al., 2016;Komarek, 1969;Mellars, 1976;Reid, 2012). People were then able to hunt prey animals attracted to recently burned areas (Scherjon et al., 2015). ...
We review palaeoenvironmental proxies and combinations of these relevant for understanding hunter-gatherer niche construction activities in pre-agricultural Europe. Our approach consists of two steps: (1) identify the possible range of hunter-gatherer impacts on landscapes based on ethnographic studies; (2) evaluate proxies possibly reflecting these impacts for both the Eemian (Last Interglacial, Middle Palaeolithic) and the Early–Middle Holocene (Mesolithic). We found these paleoenvironmental proxies were not able to unequivocally establish clear-cut differences between specific anthropogenic, climatic and megafaunal impacts for either time period in this area. We discuss case studies for both periods and show that published evidence for Mesolithic manipulation of landscapes is based on the interpretation of comparable data as available for the Last Interglacial. If one applies the ‘Mesolithic’ interpretation schemes to the Neanderthal record, three common niche construction activities can be hypothesised: vegetation burning, plant manipulation and impact on animal species presence and abundance. Our review suggests that as strong a case can be made for a Neanderthal impact on landscapes as for anthropogenic landscape changes during the Mesolithic, even though the Neanderthal evidence comes from only one high-resolution site complex. Further research should include attempts (e.g. by means of modelling studies) to establish whether hunter-gatherer impact on landscapes played out at a local level only versus at a larger scale during both time periods, while we also need to obtain comparative data on the population sizes of Last Interglacial and Holocene hunter-gatherers, as these are usually inferred to have differed significantly.
... Careful observation of primates living in fire-prone regions should lead to predictions about likely ancestral responses to landscape fires and so provide the basis for hypothesizing possible archaeological or paleontological consequences of increased fire frequency and use. Our study, among others, demonstrates that passive fire exploitation is possible, if not common, for savanna-dwelling primates (see also Brewer, 1978;Rasmussen, 1983;Harrison, 1984;Hawkins, 1999;Warren, 2003;Jaffe and Isbell, 2009;Herzog et al., 2014;Herzog et al., 2016;Kitegile, 2016;Parker et al., 2016;Pruetz and Herzog, 2017;Dubay, 2018;Giuliano, 2022). ...
Humans' extensive use of fire is one behavior that sets us apart from all other animals. However, our ancestors' reliance on controlled forms of fire—i.e., for cooking—was likely preceded by a long familiarity with fire beginning with passive exploitation of naturally burned landscapes and followed by intermediate steps including active ecological modification via intentional burning. Here we explore our pyrophilic beginnings using observational data from savanna-dwelling chimpanzees. These data highlight the extent to which anthropogenic burning impacts the behavior and ecology of sympatric primates and provides an opportunity to study the ways in which apes living in a fire-altered world exploit opportunities presented by burning. Using monthly burn scar data and daily range use data we quantify the impact of burning episodes on chimpanzee habitat. Over the course of one dry season, approximately 74% of the total estimated range of the Fongoli community of savanna-dwelling chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) was impacted by fire. We combine fire occurrences with behavioral data to test for relationships between burning and rate of encounter with food items and duration of subsequent patch residence time. Results show more frequent encounters and shorter patch residence times in burned areas. These data can be leveraged as a frame of reference for conceptualizing our extinct relatives’ behavior around fire.
... Even it was the wildfire, which still benefit for the huminid survive. Studies on the behavior of modern primates in Africa have shown that some primates can not only coexist peacefully with wildfire, but forage in the fire-modified landscape (Herzog et al., 2016;Pruetz and Herzog, 2017). This might also be the case of huminid facing wildfire (Gao, 2020). ...
The Banshan archaeological site is one of the most important Early Pleistocene Paleolithic sites in the Nihewan Basin in North China. Based on analyses of pollen, grain size and charcoal of 56 samples from a sedimentary profile, we reconstructed the environment of the Banshan site before and after the interval of hominin activity (1.340–1.290 Ma). The results show that before the appearance of hominin activity (1.340–1.324 Ma), the climate of the region was initially cold and wet and then cold and dry. The regional vegetation was mainly Pinus and Picea forest in the earlier stage, and steppe dominated by arid-tolerant plants such as Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae in the later stage. During the period of hominin activity (1.324–1.318 Ma), the climate was warm and wet, the vegetation was mainly Pinus forest, and the site was a lakeside environment which would have provided resources such as food and water for hominins. During 1.318–1.310 Ma, the climate was warm and wet, the lake continued to expand and the lake level rose, which may have forced the hominins to migrate outside the area. During 1.310–1.290 Ma, the climate changed from warm and humid to cold and arid, accompanied by the change of the regional vegetation from forest to forest-grassland. Hominin activity at the Banshan site occurred during the interval of climate change from cold and dry to warm and wet, and it ended with the rise of the ancient lake level at Nihewan and the deterioration of the climate.
... In plants, for instance, wildfire can affect leaf asymmetry (a common measure of plant stress), flowering duration, and nectar concentration (Alves-Silva & Del-Claro, 2013;Platt et al., 1988). In animals, it can affect individuals' habitat use, locomotor performance, foraging behavior, growth rate, and more (Brisson et al., 2003;Herzog et al., ,2014Herzog et al., , , 2016Howey et al., 2016;James & M'Closkey, 2003;Wild & Gienger, 2018). Here, we report on an opportunistic study considering the effect of fire on individual phenotype, including physiological stress and the expression of condition-dependent sexual signals. ...
Controlled low‐intensity fires are commonly used in ecosystem management for both habitat restoration and wildfire management. Animals in those ecosystems may respond to fire by shifting energy allocation away from reproduction and growth, and toward maintenance. Stress‐induced shifts in energy allocation may affect the expression of condition‐dependent sexual signals, which are sensitive to energetic and physiological trade‐offs mediated by glucocorticoids. Here, we examine the effect of fire on ornament expression, corticosterone, and other phenotypic traits in a population of striped plateau lizards, Sceloporus virgatus, affected by the Horseshoe 2 Fire in the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, USA. The condition‐dependent female ornament was significantly smaller the month following the fire than 2 years prior and was both smaller and less orange on the burned site relative to a nearby unburned site. These patterns are similar to those found in a previous experimental study examining the response of the ornament to corticosterone manipulations. Yet, in the current study, corticosterone levels were not different in lizards on the burned and unburned sites. Perhaps glucocorticoid levels already returned to baseline, or do not adequately track environmental change. Females tended to be smaller and lighter on the burned site than the unburned site; however, the year after the fire, body condition was higher for females on the burned site, indicating a rapid recovery and potential long‐term benefits in response to low‐intensity fires in this fire‐adapted ecosystem. We found that the lizards adjusted energy allocation away from sexual signaling and growth in response to low‐intensity fires. As fires and fire management are likely to increase in response to changing fire regimes across the globe, it will be important to consider behavioral and physiological responses of impacted species, as well as population‐, community‐, and ecosystem‐level responses.
... The nocturnal core areas closest to the territorial boundaries included sleeping sites near short-grass habitats. Short-grass areas are similar to burned areas; reduced vegetation height makes animals safer from ambush predators because visibility is good and there are fewer places for ambush predators to hide (Jaffe and Isbell 2009;Herzog et al. 2016;Hoare 2019). We suggest that vervets valued and competed for these particular sleeping sites because their enhanced visibility made it easier for vervets to detect predators while going to the trees in the evenings and leaving the trees in the mornings and for as long as they were in the area during the daytime. ...
Understanding animals’ use of space can shed valuable light on multiple other aspects of behavioral ecology, including social organization, dispersal, and foraging efficiency. Home ranges, territories, core areas, and home range overlaps have been widely studied, but unless animals are directly observed or are tracked remotely on a fine temporal scale, how they actually use the space available to them and how they share (or partition) this space with a community of conspecifics over time cannot be fully understood. Using GPS technology, we tracked three adjacent groups of vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) in Laikipia, Kenya, for 1 year to better understand the processes involved in territoriality and home range overlaps. Home ranges overlapped with any one neighboring group by 12.7–34.7%, but intergroup encounters only occurred in restricted areas within these zones, which defined territorial boundaries. The resources closest to the territorial boundaries were nocturnal core areas with preferred sleeping sites adjacent to short-grass areas offering fewer hiding places for ambush predators and greater visibility for predator detection. Home range overlaps were not neutral zones, the result of shifting home range boundaries over time, or based on intergroup encounters at boundaries, but resulted when groups made incursions beyond their territorial boundaries while the neighbor was far away and likely unaware of the intruders. Thus, territories can be non-exclusive but may still be perceived by the animals themselves as sole-owned, as neighbors only intrude when territory owners are absent from that area.
Significance statement
How animals use their space is a perennial focus in behavioral ecology because space use influences nearly everything else in animals’ lives. While tracking has long been used to investigate space use, particularly for nocturnal animals, only direct observation or tracking on a fine scale can reveal the processes involved in the creation or maintenance of home ranges and territories and that cause home range overlaps to persist. We remotely tracked three adjacent groups of vervet monkeys on a fine temporal scale for 1 year. Despite behaving territorially, vervet home ranges overlapped well beyond territorial boundaries because neighbors were “absentee owners,” unable to prevent incursions when they were not nearby. Our findings suggest that exclusivity of use in the definition of territoriality may be too strict; animals may behave as if they are exclusive owners even if neighbors’ use of space does not reflect it.
... Even with these benefits and their implications concerning the evolution of firerelated human behaviours, little is currently known surrounding the circumstances by which fire use arose and became important as a major human adaptation. Over recent years, the benefits of foraging in fire-prone environments by early hominins as a stimulus for the initial uptake of fire has been put forward ( Herzog et al. 2016; Hoare 2019), Parker et al. 2016;Pruetz and Herzog 2017). Two of the most obvious and immediate benefits of fire are light and heat, and in fact, light and heat, with regard to warmth, are both benefits that can be experienced from the close association of humans and wildfires and by foraging in recently burned areas in any environmental setting. ...
Assessing the function of Palaeolithic hearths is a key research issue that can benefit from the application of experimental archaeology when examining whether the behaviourally related purposes of fire, e.g. heat, light and cooking, could be correlated with combustion features in the archaeological record. Not all species of wood and types of fuel burn the same way. Variability exists in the amount of ash and smoke produced, along with differences in speed of burning and outgoing light and heat. This paper examined the light and heat properties of nine different types of fuels (eight individual species of wood and fresh bone) by assessing intensity of luminosity and radiative heat outputs using a lux metre and thermal imaging camera. Results show that there is considerable variation between bone and wood in terms of light and heat output and between the individual species of wood. In order to assess whether heat efficiency may vary seasonally, experiments were performed overnight and repeated at ambient air temperature ranges of 11 to 13 and 0 to 3 °C. Results show that in the current data set fuels that emit lower to intermediate heat outputs could be more efficient at colder temperatures in terms of warmth. This represents a preliminary step forward towards attributing behaviourally relevant functions such as light and heat to Palaeolithic combustion features with regard to fuel selectivity.
... Pruetz and Herzog (2017) outline a few possible reasons for why hominins might have been drawn to fire-modified landscapes: 1) changes in the distribution of and access to food, 2) improvements in overland travel, and 3) decreased threat of predation. The burning away of grassy vegetation allows for easier acquisition of hidden fruits, seeds or tubers, while also leaving behind lightly cooked small vertebrate and invertebrate species (Sponheimer et al. 2005a, b), the latter potentially leading to increased insectivory among some groups (Burton 2009;Bogart and Pruetz 2011;Herzog et al. 2016). Moreover, the reduction of dense vegetation in burned swaths not only reduces the energy required for locomotion, but may also be attractive because of enhanced predator detection (Herzog 2015). ...
(Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte 28)
The ability to control fire is a pivotal trait of human culture and likely influenced both the physical and cultural development of our evolutionary lineage. We know fire fundamentally changed our relationship with the world by making previously uninhabitable climates tolerable, inedible foods palatable and more nutritious, and providing a focal point around which complex social relationships could develop. It remains uncertain, however, when and in what manner fire became an integral part of the technological repertoire of our early ancestors. This gap in our knowledge prevents a full understanding of how fire affected our physical form and cultural lifeways. The long and drawn out process by which fire progressed from simply being a close companion in the natural environment to becoming a resource exploited opportunistically by hominins eventually led to greater control of fire. At this point, fire was largely 'tamed' through careful maintenance and transported from place to place. Ultimately, likely through a combination of serendipity and experimentation, humans discovered that they could make fire for themselves whenever and wherever they liked, providing a profound new freedom to control their environment, cook their food and produce new materials at will. This article provides an overview of the current state of our understanding of fire use, and more specifically, fire-making in the Paleolithic. There is currently much debate in the field surrounding this issue, and it is stressed herein that the only way to definitively infer any one hominin group could make fire is to identify the tools they used to do so. Therefore, much attention is paid to how archaeologists have attempted to identify fire-making tools in the archaeological record, primarily using experimental archaeology coupled with microwear analysis. Through these efforts, it appears stone-on-stone percussive fire-making using flint and pyrite was a skill first practiced by at least some groups of late Neanderthals, though its origins could be much older. Conversely, preservational problems associated with the wood-on-wood friction fire-making make it extremely difficult to assess the antiquity of this method. Lingering questions regarding early fire-making innovations and possible avenues for future research are discussed.
... 1,[6][7][8] Although the timing of the use and control of fire is debated, over recent years research on the behavior of other animals including non-human primates has provided insight into how the initial uptake of fire may have occurred. [1][2][3][4][5][9][10][11] The benefits of foraging in recently burned landscapes have been suggested by several researchers, and recently burned areas are argued to present attractive environments for early hominins along with many other animals. [9][10][11] In this view, foraging in fire prone environments by our ancestors ca. 3 mya is seen as the first of a number of stages, which eventually led to the ability to use and then make fire at will. ...
... [1][2][3][4][5][9][10][11] The benefits of foraging in recently burned landscapes have been suggested by several researchers, and recently burned areas are argued to present attractive environments for early hominins along with many other animals. [9][10][11] In this view, foraging in fire prone environments by our ancestors ca. 3 mya is seen as the first of a number of stages, which eventually led to the ability to use and then make fire at will. 3,9,12,13 Recently, our understanding of the benefits afforded to early hominins foraging in post-fire environments has increased due to several new studies concerning extant primate-fire interactions, and through the formulation of a new hypothesis on early hominin-fire interactions the Pyrophillic Primate Hypothesis, or (PPH). ...
... 3,9,12,13 Recently, our understanding of the benefits afforded to early hominins foraging in post-fire environments has increased due to several new studies concerning extant primate-fire interactions, and through the formulation of a new hypothesis on early hominin-fire interactions the Pyrophillic Primate Hypothesis, or (PPH). [9][10][11] The PPH, 9 sets out an evolutionary scenario whereby human-fire dependency is seen as a result of adaptations to fire prone environments, 3-2 mya, under the increasing occurrence of natural fires in African savanna dominated landscapes. Using the prey choice model from optimal foraging theory, which simplifies foraging into two components, search and handling times, search being the time spent looking for food and handling being the time spent procuring and processing those foods post-encounter. ...
Foraging in burned areas has been suggested to represent the earliest stage in the use and control of fire by early hominins. Recently burned areas offer immediate foraging benefits including increased search efficiency for high‐ranked food items and decreased hunting opportunities for ambush predators. As such, they provide a triple‐bonus (reduced risk from ambush, ease of terrestrial travel and higher foraging returns) for some primates. However, previous studies have not yet accounted for other types of predators e.g., coursing (endurance predators that can pursue prey over long distances) which were sympatric with hominins and may also have exploited these environments. Behavioral ecology studies on the use of burned landscapes by extant carnivores demonstrate that while some ambush predators avoid recently burned areas, coursing predators do take advantage of their immediate hunting opportunities. Research examining habitat selection by animals under the simultaneous threat of multiple predator species with different modes of hunting, and the diversity of Plio‐Pleistocene carnivore guild is suggestive of two possible evolutionary scenarios in which hominins could either have selected or avoided burned areas (3–2 mya), based on whether ambush or coursing predators were perceived as presenting the greatest risk.
... The same happens with other primate species: in Chlorocebus aethiops, for example, an expansion of home range into newly burned, but previously unused, areas has been observed after a fire (Herzog et al. 2014). In fact, there are many examples in primates that forage in burned habitats, extracting freshly cooked resources, such as vervets and macaques (Harrison 1983(Harrison , 1984Berenstain 1986;Armelagos 2010;Herzog et al. 2014Herzog et al. , 2016Herzog 2015). Moreover, burning creates microhabitats characterised by a reduction of threat of dangerous snakes or larger carnivores, so primates begin showing less risk averse behaviour (Herzog 2015). ...
