Guy Cowlishaw's research while affiliated with Zoological Society of London and other places
What is this page?
This page lists the scientific contributions of an author, who either does not have a ResearchGate profile, or has not yet added these contributions to their profile.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
Publications (194)
Maternal strategies reflect the trade-off between offspring needs and maternal ability to invest, a concept described by the evolutionary theory of parent–offspring conflict. In mammals this conflict has often been investigated by studying weaning, the transition from maternal milk consumption to dietary independence. An investigation of individual...
Research in social mammals has revealed the complexity of female counter-strategies to reproductive competition and sexual conflict. For example, comparative research has shown that the length of female sexual receptivity varies with infanticide risk, but whether individuals can strategically adjust their period of receptivity from cycle to cycle r...
Animal reproductive phenology varies from strongly seasonal to nonseasonal, sometimes among closely related or sympatric species. While the extent of reproductive seasonality is often attributed to environmental seasonality, this fails to explain many cases of nonseasonal breeding in seasonal environments. We investigated the evolutionary determina...
Mechanistic models suggest that individuals’ memories could shape home range patterns and dynamics, and how neighbors share space. In social species, such dynamics of home range overlap may be affected by the pre-dispersal memories of immigrants. We tested this “immigrant knowledge hypothesis” in a wild population of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus)....
Animal reproductive phenology varies from strongly seasonal to non-seasonal, sometimes among closely related or sympatric species. While the extent of reproductive seasonality is often attributed to environmental seasonality, this fails to explain many cases of non-seasonal breeding in seasonal environments. We investigated the evolutionary determi...
Studies of primate personality have become increasingly common over the past three decades. Recently, studies have begun to focus on the health, welfare and conservation implications of personality, and the potential applications of incorporating quantitative personality assessments into animal management programmes. However, this literature is dis...
Several hundred species are hunted for wild meat in the tropics, supporting the diets, customs, and livelihoods of millions of people. However, unsustainable hunting is one of the most urgent threats to wildlife and ecosystems worldwide and has serious ramifications for people whose subsistence and income are tied to wild meat. Over the past 18 yea...
Several hundred species are hunted for wild meat in the tropics, supporting the diets, customs, and livelihoods of millions of people. However, unsustainable hunting is one of the most urgent threats to wildlife and ecosystems worldwide and has serious ramifications for people whose subsistence and income are tied to wild meat. Over the past 18 yea...
A bstract
The formation of culture in animal societies, including humans, relies on the social transmission of information amongst individuals. This spread depends upon the transmission of social information, or social learning, between individuals. However, not all information spreads. To better understand how constraints at the individual-, dyad-...
The evolutionary benefits of reproductive seasonality are often measured by a single-fitness component, namely offspring survival. Yet different fitness components may be maximized by different birth timings. This may generate fitness trade-offs that could be critical to understanding variation in reproductive timing across individuals, populations...
Reconciliation, or postconflict (PC) affiliation between former opponents, is a widespread conflict management strategy in animal societies, so-named for its relationship repair function. However, another possibility is that PC affiliation reflects a submissive response of victims towards aggressors to limit conflict escalation when the power imbal...
Animal reproductive phenology varies from strongly seasonal to non-seasonal, sometimes among closely related or sympatric species. While the extent of reproductive seasonality is often attributed to environmental seasonality, this fails to explain many cases of non-seasonal breeding in seasonal environments. We investigated the evolutionary determi...
For group-living animals to remain cohesive they must agree on where to travel. Theoretical models predict shared group decisions should be favoured, and a number of empirical examples support this. However, the behavioural mechanisms that underpin shared decision-making are not fully understood. Groups may achieve consensus of direction by active...
Despite the controlled testing conditions that are typical of captive environments, many evaluations of animal cognition fail to ensure that all tested individuals participate. This is even more evident under wild conditions, as animals are not restricted in their movement or social interactions and have other activities available. In this study, w...
The evolutionary benefits of reproductive seasonality are usually measured by a single fitness component, namely offspring survival to nutritional independence (Bronson, 2009). Yet different fitness components may be maximised by dissimilar birth timings. This may generate fitness trade-offs that could be critical to understanding variation in repr...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biaa082.].
Threats to biodiversity are well documented. However, to effectively conserve species and their habitats, we need to know which conservation interventions do (or do not) work. Evidence-based conservation evaluates interventions within a scientific framework. The Conservation Evidence project has summarized thousands of studies testing conservation...
Objectives
In many primates, one of the most noticeable morphological developmental traits is the transition from natal fur and skin color to adult coloration. Studying the chronology and average age at such color transitions can be an easy and noninvasive method to (a) estimate the age of infants whose dates of birth were not observed, and (b) det...
Cognitive abilities underpin many of the behavioural decisions of animals. However, we still have very little understanding of how and why cognitive abilities vary between individuals of the same species in wild populations. In this study, we assessed the associative learning abilities of wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) across two troops in Nam...
What do animals know of death? What can animals' responses to death tell us about the evolution of species’ minds, and the origins of humans' awareness of death and dying? A recent surge in interest in comparative thanatology may provide beginnings of answers to these questions. Here, we add to the comparative thanatology literature by reporting 12...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Climate-change-driven alterations in the extent and intensity of extreme weather events may have catastrophic consequences for primate populations. Using a trait-based approach, we assessed the vulnerability of the world’s 607 primate taxa to effects of cyclones and droughts—two types of extreme climatic events that are expected to increase and/or...
Climate-change-driven alterations in the extent and intensity of extreme weather events may have catastrophic consequences for primate populations. Using a trait-based approach, we assessed the vulnerability of the world’s 607 primate taxa to effects of cyclones and droughts—two types of extreme climatic events that are expected to increase and/or...
Male aggression towards females is a common and often costly occurrence in species that live in bisexual groups. But preferential heterosexual relationships are also known to confer numerous fitness advantages to both sexes—making it of interest to explore how aggression is managed among male–female dyads through strategies like reconciliation (i.e...
Many social animal species produce vocalizations believed to facilitate group contraction when one or more group members have become distant. However, the mechanisms underlying this function remain unclear for many species. We examined this question with data on a semi-free ranging group of 16 adult domesticated goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) inhabi...
In social species, female mating strategies can be constrained by both male and female groupmates through sexual conflict and reproductive competition, respectively. This study tests if females adjust their sexual behaviour according to the presence of male and female bystanders in wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) and assesses their relative imp...
We develop a time budget model for the hylobatid family with the aim of assessing the extent to which their contemporary and historical biogeographic distributions might be explained by ecological constraints. The model uses local climate to predict time budgets, and from this the limiting size of social group that animals could manage at a given l...
Most climate change vulnerability assessments of species focus on characterizing the degree to which species are likely to be affected by changes in mean climatic conditions. Yet, there has been little progress in the explicit assessment of species vulnerability to extreme climatic events (ECEs) which have the potential to cause substantial environ...
Female-female competition over paternal care has rarely been investigated in promiscuous mammals, where discreet forms of male care have recently been reported despite low paternity certainty. We investigated female competition over paternal care in a wild promiscuous primate, the chacma baboon (Papio ursinus), where pregnant and lactating females...
Although ephemeral rivers act as linear oases and play a fundamental role in sustaining regional biodiversity in dryland regions, little is known about these systems or their sensitivity to human impacts. Without such knowledge, it is difficult to manage or conserve them. Here, we conduct the first systematic investigation into the determinants of...
Recent research reveals that female reproductive competition is common and may shape the social and reproductive strategies of female mammals. This study explores the determinants and intensity of female intrasexual conflicts in a wild promiscuous primate, the chacma baboon, Papio ursinus. We tested a suite of hypotheses to assess whether femaleefe...
Results of GLMM assessing the effect of household size (AME) on protein consumption per household.
(PDF)
Introduction
Wildlife is an important source of protein for many people in developing countries. Yet wildlife depletion due to overexploitation is common throughout the humid tropics and its effect on protein security, especially for vulnerable households, is poorly understood. This is problematic for both sustainable rural development and conserva...
Results of GLMM assessing the effect of household wealth (wealth), gender of the household head (gender) and seasonality (season) on household size (in AME).
(PDF)
Results of GLMM analysing the effect of household wealth (wealth), gender of the household head (gender) and seasonality (season) on the contribution of bushmeat protein for households that consumed bushmeat (scale of the response) (assuming 1% protein content of low-protein food crops).
Analysed were mean consumption estimates per household per se...
Results of GLMM analysing the effect of participatory household wealth (wealth), gender of the household head (gender) and seasonality (season) on the contribution of plant protein within a household’s total protein consumption (assuming 1% protein content of low-protein food crops).
Mean consumption estimates per household per season were analysed...
Effect of households size (AME) on household protein consumption (g) (GLMM results in S3 Table).
(PDF)
Literature estimates of food crop protein content.
(PDF)
Sales prices for animals consumed or sold in Wansampo.
(PDF)
Effect of households wealth rank on household size (GLMM results in S3 Table).
Standard errors are shown.
(PDF)
Questionnaire used for the data collection.
(PDF)
Sexual violence occurring in the context of long-term heterosexual relationships, such as sexual intimidation, is widespread across human populations [1-3]. However, its evolutionary origins remain speculative because few studies have investigated the existence of comparable forms of sexual coercion in animals [4, 5], in which repeated male aggress...
Data for analysis 2 (randomisations)
Data for rank asymmetry randomisations analysis (analysis 2).
Data for analysis 1
Data for analysis of frequency of joining vs dominance rank (analysis 1).
Extra data needed for randomisations
Dominance rank data needed for random draws in simulations (analysis 2).
When foraging in a social group, individuals are faced with the choice of sampling their environment directly or exploiting the discoveries of others. The evolutionary dynamics of this trade-off have been explored mathematically through the producer-scrounger game, which has highlighted socially exploitative behaviours as a major potential cost of...
Code to run analyses and produce figures
Fully annotated code to run analyses and produce figures using associated data files.
Data for analysis 3
Data for competitive exclusion analysis (analysis 3).
Ephemeral rivers act as linear oases in drylands providing key resources to people and wildlife. However, not much is known about these rivers' sensitivities to human activities. We investigated the landscape-level determinants of riparian tree dieback along the Swakop River, a dammed ephemeral river in Namibia, focusing on the native ana tree (Fai...
Hunter survey instruments.
(DOCX)
The trade in wildlife products can represent an important source of income for poor people, but also threaten wildlife locally, regionally and internationally. Bushmeat provides livelihoods for hunters, traders and sellers, protein to rural and urban consumers, and has depleted the populations of many tropical forest species. Management interventio...
Summary of the one-week survey of the Atwemonom bushmeat market in June 2011.
(DOCX)
Trader survey instrument.
(DOCX)
Raw survey data.
(XLSX)
Urban consumer survey instrument.
(DOCX)
A comparison of 1990 and 2011 bushmeat market surveys.
(DOCX)
Proportion of hunter reports citing particular species as being present or absent in their catch.
(PDF)
Summary of average hunting trip length and catch per unit effort over time.
The authors are solely responsible for the content and functionality of these materials. Queries (other than absence of the material) should be directed to the corresponding author.
(DOCX)
Close associations between adult males and lactating females occur in several promiscuous primate species. Benefits gained by males from such bonds may include increases in offspring fitness through paternal effort (the “mate-then-care” hypothesis) and/or subsequent mating opportunities with the female (the “care-then-mate” hypothesis). Heterosexua...
Social information allows the rapid dissemination of novel information among individuals. However, an individual's ability to use information is likely to be dependent on phenotypic constraints operating at three successive steps: acquisition, application, and exploitation. We tested this novel framework by quantifying the sequential process of soc...
Organisms may reduce uncertainty regarding how best to exploit their environment by collecting information about resource distribution. We develop a model to demonstrate how competition can facilitate or constrain an individual's ability to use information when acquiring resources. As resource distribution underpins both selection on information us...
A description of market survey methods (Appendix S1), summary of market data for 1986 and 2002 (Appendix S2), detailed description of the image processing and classification methodology (Appendix S3), summary of model variables (Appendix S4), and the correlation matrix describing relationships between model variables (Appendix S5) are available onl...
Landscapes in many developing countries consist of a heterogeneous matrix of mixed agriculture and forest. Many of the generalist species in this matrix are increasingly traded in the bushmeat markets of West and Central Africa. However, to date there has been little quantification of how the spatial configuration of the landscape influences the ur...
Individuals' access to social information can depend on their social network. Homophily-a preference to associate with similar phenotypes-may cause assortment within social networks that could preclude information transfer from individuals who generate information to those who would benefit from acquiring it. Thus, understanding phenotypic assortme...
Unsustainable hunting threatens both biodiversity and local livelihoods. Despite high levels of research
effort focused on understanding the dynamics of bushmeat trade and consumption, current research is
largely site specific. Without synthesis and quantitative analysis of available case studies, the national
and regional characteristics of bushme...
Unsustainable hunting threatens both biodiversity and local livelihoods. Despite high levels of research effort focused on understanding the dynamics of bushmeat trade and consumption, current research is largely site specific. Without synthesis and quantitative analysis of available case studies, the national and regional characteristics of bushme...
In social groups, individuals' dominance rank, social bonds, and kinship with other group members have been shown to influence their foraging behavior. However, there is growing evidence that the particular effects of these social traits may also depend on local environmental conditions. We investigated this by comparing the foraging behavior of wi...
The recent application of social network analysis to animal populations has provided a tool to quantify group dynamics and individual social positions, which may enhance our understanding of the costs and benefits of sociality and the evolution of behavioural strategies within societies. Despite this, uncertainties remain about whether comparisons...
Strong social bonds can make an important contribution to individual fitness, but we still have only a limited understanding of the temporal period relevant to the adjustment of social relationships. While there is growing recognition of the importance of strong bonds that persist for years, social relationships can also vary over weeks and months,...
Social learning can play a critical role in the reproduction and survival of social animals. Individual differences in the propensity for social learning are therefore likely to have important fitness consequences. We asked whether personality might underpin such individual variation in a wild population of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus). We used t...
Extreme natural events such as cold waves, droughts, floods or hurricanes can drastically impact wildlife populations and are expected to become more frequent and more intense in the coming decades. When populations experience abnormally high declines within a short time interval due to such phenomena, the losses can be referred to as natural popul...
Unsustainable hunting is a threat to conservation and rural livelihoods that depend on bushmeat for food and income. To reduce the pressure on forest-dependent vulnerable species, hunting in farmland might complement offtake from forests and provide a sustainable source of bushmeat. To explore this possibility, we investigated patterns of hunting a...
Ephemeral rivers and the vegetation they support have numerous ecological and economic values to the mammals and people who rely on these systems. Yet, these crucial environments are believed to be threatened by exotic plant invasion. In Africa, invasive trees of the genus Prosopis have detrimental effects on native vegetation, bird and dung beetle...
Phenotypic plasticity in decision making should be selected for when reliable information on current conditions is available. When current information is unreliable, however, selection should favour unresponsive behavioural phenotypes, which might lead to the emergence of personalities. We tested the hypothesis that personality will affect decision...
Bushmeat is an important resource in the livelihoods of many rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and may be a crucial safety-net for the most vulnerable households, especially during times of economic hardship. However, little is known about the impacts of wildlife depletion on these functions. This study quantifies the role of bushmeat in dive...
A forager's optimal patch-departure time can be predicted by the prescient marginal value theorem (pMVT), which assumes they have perfect knowledge of the environment, or by approaches such as Bayesian updating and learning rules, which avoid this assumption by allowing foragers to use recent experiences to inform their decisions. In understanding...
Space use is an important aspect of animal ecology, yet our understanding is limited by a lack of synthesis between interspecific and intraspecific studies. We present analyses of a dataset of 286 estimates of home range overlap from 100 primate species, with comparable samples for other space-use traits. To the best of our knowledge, this represen...
The evolution of paternal care is rare in promiscuous mammals, where it is hampered by low paternity confidence. However, recent evidence indicates that juveniles whose fathers are present experience accelerated maturation in promiscuous baboon societies. The mechanisms mediating these paternal effects remain unclear. Here, we investigated whether...
The discovery that an individual may be constrained, and even behave sub-optimally, because of its personality type has fundamental implications for understanding individual- to group-level processes. Despite recent interest in the study of animal personalities within behavioural ecology, the field is fraught with conceptual and methodological diff...