What's burning got to do with it? Primate foraging opportunities in fire‐modified landscapes

Abstract

Results suggest that improved encounters alone can motivate changes in foraging behavior. These foraging benefits enable the exploitation of burned savanna habitats, likely driving postburn range expansions observed among populations of vervet monkeys. Thus quantified, these results may serve as a foundation for hypotheses regarding the evolution of fire-use in our own lineage.

The pyrophilic primate hypothesis

“…Exploitation of burned areas has also been observed among vervet monkeys. Our own research shows that vervets in South Africa expand their territory to encompass newly burned areas to take advantage of pyrogenic improvements . Anecdotal evidence further illuminates the relationship that nonhuman primates have with fire.…”

The possible role of predator–prey dynamics as an influence on early hominin use of burned landscapes

“…Two major benefits relating to improvements in foraging opportunities are proposed by the PPH; increased search efficiency for high‐ranked food items, as well as increased energetic profitability of food items cooked during natural fires. Both suggestions proposed by the PPH are strongly supported by observational and quantitative studies on the behavior of extant primates in fire‐prone savanna landscapes . Pruetz and Herzog, further suggest possible motivations as to what may have attracted early hominins to post‐fire environments; changes in the distribution of and access to food; improvements to travel and decreased threat of predation.…”

“…Marked as one of the most important technological advancements by the Homo genus, the ability to make and use fire has major socio‐ecological implications including modification of resources and the environment, colonization of the northern latitudes, extension of daylight hours, cooking and expansion of our range of material culture . 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 . 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 .…”

“…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) . The PPH, 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.…”

Chimpanzee food preferences, associative learning, and the origins of cooking

“…Motivation (Dashiell, 1925), inhibitory control (Reynolds, De Wit, & Richards, 2002), causal understanding (Blaisdell, Sawa, Leising, & Waldmann, 2006), and planning (Crystal, 2013), for example, have all been claimed, to various degrees, in rats. Vervet monkeys, like chimpanzees, exploit areas burned by wildfires for ranging and feeding purposes (Jaffe & Isbell, 2009; Herzog et al, 2014; Herzog, Keefe, Parker, & Hawkes, in press); and it is likely that a wide variety of captive animals, primate and non-primate alike, would prefer cooked to uncooked foods, due to considerations from optimal foraging theory (Charnov, 1976; Schoener, 1971; Wrangham, 2009). Some of the purported psychological prerequisites for cooking may have been around a long time, perhaps tens of millions of years, something that cannot be recognized without applying a more broadly comparative approach (i.e., extending the discussion beyond chimpanzees or apes generally).…”