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| Cultured long-tailed macaques in Bali: Implications for animal conservation |
| Jean-Baptiste Leca1, No�lle Gunst1, Fany Brotcorne2, Caleb Bunselmeyer1, Camilla Cenni3, Sydney Chertoff1, Amanda Pelletier1, Lilah Sciaky4, Brooke Third1, Nengah I. Wandia5. 1University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada; 2University of Li�ge, Li�ge, , Belgium; 3University of Mannheim, Mannheim, , Germany; 4Columbia University, New York, NY, United States; 5Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia |
Across various animal taxa, a behavior is deemed cultural if it is: (1) geographically variable, (2) prevalent, (3) persistent over time, and (4) dependent on social means for its diffusion, expression, maintenance, and possible transformation. Using these four criteria and our behavioral data from five free-ranging populations of Balinese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis fascicularis), we first document the diversity in the cultural repertoire of this primate species, focusing on material culture (i.e., various forms of object play and tool use). Our second goal is to highlight the implications of research on nonhuman cultures for the welfare and conservation of animal populations. Previous research showed that animal culture can be an index of behavioral, socio-demographic, and genetic diversity, flexibility, and adaptability; it is also a metric of population welfare and environmental viability. We argue that this is particularly true for questionably adaptive cultural behaviors, such as object play and comfort-related tool use that may contribute to assessing individual health, populational evolvability, and species-level conservation status. |