SEMINAR
“Nut-cracking with stone tools impacts the life of capuchin monkeys”
by Patrícia Izar
Date: 26 April 2021, Monday
Time: 17:30
Place: Zoom Meeting
Abstract
I will present studies demonstrating how nut-cracking with stone tools affect several aspects of the life of bearded capuchin monkeys from Fazenda Boa Vista, Brazil. Compared to other populations, these capuchin monkeys are peculiar in cognitive processes related to using tools, such as perception, attention, memory, and learning, as well as in spatial cognition. Tool use also affects aspects of sociality and nutritional ecology of these monkeys. I will demonstrate how the research on tool use by capuchin monkeys has advanced our understanding of how traditions might affect biological processes.
About the Speaker:
Patrícia Izar is Professor of the Experimental Psychology Department, University of São Paulo, Brazil. She is an ethologist with an emphasis on primatology. She has experience in primate behavioural ecology, social behaviour, cognition, development and maternal care. She has been studying capuchin monkeys since she was an undergrad student, in the 1990s and today she coordinates long-term researches in three field sites in Brazil, the Carlos Botelho State Park, the Una Biological Reserve, and the Fazenda Boa Vista. She has published a hundred papers and book chapters and advised more than 70 students from Scientific Initiation to doctoral dissertations. She is currently the Vice-President for Education of the International Society of Primatology and Member of the Cultural Evolution Society Executive Committee.