Human population increases and an expanding agricultural frontier are driving tropical deforestation. As a result, many primates are increasingly found outside of protected areas in highly-disturbed environments in close proximity to humans. A better understanding of primate species adaptability to human pressures and the ability of anthropogenic landscapes to support viable populations in the long-term is critical for effective conservation efforts. By focusing on the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) community in the anthropogenic landscape of Bossou, Guinea, West Africa, I aimed to 1) empirically describe the composition and availability of chimpanzee resources across fine spatial scales, 2) examine chimpanzee use and activity budget across available habitat types and in relation to anthropogenic pressures and risks, 3) determine the macronutrient composition of wild and cultivated chimpanzee foods, and 4) investigate chimpanzee macronutrient intake and balancing from wild and cultivated foods. To examine objective 1, I undertook quadrat vegetation surveys and phenology surveys to spatially and temporally quantify chimpanzee food resources in all available habitat types. Bossou is largely composed of regenerating forest and the scarcity of large fruit bearing trees is offset by a high diversity of wild and cultivated chimpanzee food species. Moraceae (mulberries and figs) is the dominant family, trees of which produce drupaceous fruits favoured by chimpanzees. The oil palm, which provides the chimpanzees with year-round food resources, occurs at high densities throughout Bossou. Mature and secondary forests are the most important habitat types for food species availability. Overall, these results emphasise the importance of examining ecological characteristics of an anthropogenic landscape as each available habitat type is unlikely to be equally important in terms of spatial and temporal availability of resources. To examine objective 2, I conducted behavioural follows to record chimpanzee activities and habitat use across all forest and highly disturbed habitat types, and foraging locations in non-cultivated habitat in relation to anthropogenic pressures i.e. cultivated fields and roads and paths. Chimpanzees preferentially use forest habitat types for travelling and resting and highly disturbed habitat types for socialising. The availability of wild fruit and crops influences seasonal habitat use for foraging. The chimpanzees rely heavily on a small patch of mature forest, rich in food species and with low human presence, irrespective of season and activity. The chimpanzees avoid foraging in non-cultivated habitat within 200 m of cultivated fields, with no effect of habitat type or season, suggesting an influence of associated risk. Nevertheless, they did not actively avoid foraging close to roads and paths. These results reveal chimpanzee reliance on different habitat types and the influence of human-induced pressures on their activities. To examine objective 3, I used standard wet chemistry procedures to estimate the macronutrient content of wild and cultivated chimpanzee foods. The composition of wild fruit, leaves and pith are consistent with previous reports for primate diets. Cultivars are generally higher in carbohydrates and lower in fibre than wild foods, while wild foods are higher in protein. Oil palm food parts are rich in energy, carbohydrates, protein, lipids and/or fermentable fibre fractions; adding nutritional support for the importance of oil palms for chimpanzees in anthropogenic landscapes. These results build on current understanding of chimpanzee feeding ecology and nutrition within forest-agricultural mosaics and provide further empirical evidence that cultivars offer primates energetic benefits over most wild plant foods. To examine objective 4, I used the macronutrient composition of foods and recorded chimpanzee intakes of wild and cultivated foods during focal follows. Diet composition and macronutrient intakes vary little between the sexes; however females have higher total foods (i.e. wild and cultivated combined), digestible fibre (NDF), and protein intakes when controlling for metabolic body mass. There are no differences in wild or cultivated food intake between seasons; however lipid and protein intake from cultivars, and most likely oil palm food parts, is higher during the fruit scarce season. The chimpanzees maintain their proportional intake of protein while allowing carbohydrate and lipid intakes to vary. Furthermore, they were able to achieve a consistent balance of protein to non-protein (carbohydrates, lipids, and NDF) energy across the year. These results suggest the chimpanzees suffer little seasonal constrains in food quality or availability and are able to combine their consumption of available wild and cultivated foods to achieve a balanced diet. Overall, this thesis provides new insights into the ecology of anthropogenic landscapes, the influence of human pressures on chimpanzee habitat use and behaviours, and the role of cultivars in chimpanzee foraging strategies and in allowing them to meet their nutritional requirements. Such information is important for informing conservation initiatives aimed at balancing the needs of people and chimpanzees that share space and resources within anthropogenic landscapes.

Evidence from captive studies suggests that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) lack the motivation to complete cooperative tasks and there is little evidence for communication that coordinates their behaviour during joint actions or whether individuals have a shared motivation towards the same goal. Two types of behaviour where individuals are argued to engage in joint activity are investigated in the Sonso community of wild chimpanzees in Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda: joint travel and group hunting. This study presents evidence from naturalistic observations, and also a playback experiment to further investigate hunting behaviour. Joint travel appears to have no coordinating signal or behaviour on a local level, although the use of pant-hoot vocalisations to coordinate long-distance group travel is supported. In group hunting, bark vocalisations are associated with initiating a group hunt, indicating their potential role in coordination of joint action. Bark production also appears to be affected by the social composition of other hunters, with more barks being produced when other hunters are closer affiliates, suggesting flexibility in call production. The field experiment exploring joint action in group hunts utilises the alarm calls of the chimpanzees' prey species- the Colobus monkey (Colobus guereza). Alarm calls produced by the monkeys when they were being hunting by chimpanzees and in response to an eagle stimulus were played back to dyads of affiliated males, and their vocal and behaviour responses recorded. Results firstly indicate that chimpanzees recognise different Colobus predator alarm. Furthermore, half of the trials with the Colobus hunting alarm elicited a vocal response of barks from both of the males in the experiment, along with joint movement in the direction of the playback. These initial results from a novel field experiment suggest that the bark vocalisation is associated with the initiation of joint action in the context of group hunting.

Zoological institutions emphasise the importance of excelling in the areas of animal welfare, conservation, education, and research, not only to better the lives of the animals under their care, but to also influence the general population in the pursuit to conserve the natural world. As a result, zoo life is anything but simple. This research project monitored the lives of a captive group of chimpanzees over a two-and-a-half-year period, during which time we explored four research topics while assessing the development of a cognitive research programme and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) introductions in a zoo: welfare, cognition, public engagement with science, and animal management. The project’s use of touchscreen technology and on-exhibit research was the first of its kind for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s Edinburgh Zoo. As a result, the researchers placed a great deal of importance not only on assessing the welfare of the chimpanzees throughout training and testing phases, but also assessing the public’s perception of cognitive research being conducted through an internationally broadcast documentary about the project. In the short duration of the project, these research naïve chimpanzees did not fully grasp the concept of video selection in our free-choice activity, but overall, the introduction of a cognitive research programme did not compromise welfare, and the chimpanzees’ repeated interest suggests that chimpanzees found the research to be reinforcing. Partly funded by the BBC, the Chimpcam Project was shown in the UK (broadcast January 2010) and in a variety of other countries, including the United States and Canada (on Animal Planet in 2011). The broadcast allowed us to gather information over the internet on the wider public’s perception of conducting research with great apes in zoos, to complement data collected on visitors to the exhibit itself. Our assessment of the documentary’s impact on public perception showed that it had a positive influence on perceptions of zoo research, scientists, welfare, and the importance of choice for animals. During this research project, a new group of chimpanzees arrived in Edinburgh as part of the international breeding programme for western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus). As the zoo’s focus switched to helping the two chimpanzee groups merge into one, we took the opportunity to apply psychological research to this context, namely the use of video as a research tool and the recognition of the importance of individual differences in response to challenge. The project maintained the cognition and welfare focus by using video introductions (allowing the chimpanzees to watch video footage of the individuals they were about to meet and track the formation of other sub-groups). In addition, personality ratings and chimpanzee behaviour during the visual access period (an animal management technique used prior to physical introductions where the groups could see each other without physical contact) were collected to examine the efficacy of these measures in guiding introductions in order to reduce risk. Personality ratings and behaviours observed during the video introductions could predict the chimpanzees’ behaviour during the physical introductions, however, the visual access period had no predictive power. The welfare implications of the introduction process were also assessed and suggested that: the choice of location (i.e. options of where to be) was more important than the total amount of available space; having individuals removed from your group was more stressful than having individuals added; self-directed behaviour (SDB) performance was context-specific where rubbing significantly increased during periods of uncertainty that were not necessarily negatively valenced; regurgitation and reingestion (R/R) decreased over time; and both in-group members and those of high ranks spent more time grooming others. Overall our data indicate that the chimpanzees coped well with both cognitive challenges and social upheaval during introductions. Despite being regularly studied in captivity and in the wild, chimpanzees have a great deal more to teach us about their world. In order to provide the best welfare for the chimpanzees in our care, we need to understand how research and management practices affect their lives and how the public interpret what we do as researchers. By understanding these aspects of their world, we can better serve those in captivity and influence public opinion on the importance of conserving those in the wild.