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15 - Long-term diet of the chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Taï National Park: interannual variations in consumption

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2019

By
Zoro Bertin Goné Bi  and
Roman Wittig
Edited by
Christophe Boesch  and
Roman Wittig
Edited in association with
Catherine Crockford ,
Linda Vigilant ,
Tobias Deschner  and
Fabian Leendertz
Christophe Boesch
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Roman Wittig
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Catherine Crockford
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Linda Vigilant
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Tobias Deschner
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Fabian Leendertz
Affiliation:
Robert Koch-Institut, Germany
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Summary

After 40 years, four groups of chimpanzees of the Taï Chimpanzee Project have been habituated to human observers and are followed daily. Data collected on the different groups allow us to follow long-term trends in the socioecology of the Taï chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are ecologically ?exible omnivores with broad diets comprising mainly plant and animal foods. Like other ecologically ?exible non-human primates with broad diets, their diets vary across time and habitats. Strong interannual changes have been shown to exist in the food composition of the wild chimpanzee’s diet. Because of this, only data collected over time can reveal their diversified food selection. In this chapter we list all of the plant and animal foods consumed by the two oldest habituated chimpanzee groups in the Taï Forest. We document variation of use between groups and across years. We analyse the consumption variations of some key food species within the two communities, with a focus on plant components of the diet. As for plant foods, the chimpanzees have been seen to feed on 503 food items from 363 plant species. Fruit represents 73.76% of number of food species and 85% when one considers feeding time.

Keywords

ChimpanzeesFeeding timeFeeding ecologyDiet variationTaï National ParkCôte d’IvoireFood compositionFood typeLong-term feeding dataHabituated populations
Type
Chapter
Information
The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest
40 Years of Research
 , pp. 242 - 260
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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