Human fire use is a distinct and recognizable trait with far reaching consequences on the evolution of our species. Questions surrounding the origins of human-controlled fire have implications for the evolution of cognition as well as cranial and post-cranial anatomy, among others (Twomey 2013). Insight into extant primate-fire interactions as an analog for hominin fire-interactions can provide insight into the origins of human fire use (Herzog 2015). The Pyrophilic Primate Hypothesis states that primate interaction with increasingly fire-prone environments led to adaptations such as exploiting suddenly available (food) resources that were more efficiently accessible (Parker et al. 2016). If naturally occurring fires impacted hominin behavior in a selectively advantageous way, it is possible that extant chimpanzee populations may exhibit similar responses to fire as well. There is some evidence to support this. At Fongoli, southeastern Senegal, chimpanzees have been observed monitoring and avoiding fire (Pruetz and LaDuke 2010). Even if not outright resource exploitation, such behaviors are in many ways indicative of a deeper knowledge of fire and fire movement, necessitating further expiration into the veracity of chimpanzee-fire interactions.

The number of areas where we can study primate responses to fire is extremely limited. Issa Valley is well situated to be an important contributor to this topic. This is due to a variety of factors including the relatively high frequency of fires at Issa in which over 70% of the landscape (Piel et al. 2019), the long term ecological and primatological data which has been collected ranging from rainfall statistics to camera trap data (D’Ammando et al. 2022), and the similarity of Issa ecology to the mosaic savannah hominins evolved in as seen in studies already comparing food modalities of chimps at Issa to Plio-Pleistocene environments (Drummond-Clarke et al. 2022). These factors in combination with the need to increase the scope of research on primate fire interactions makes Issa an excellent match for this study’s objectives.

The goal of this project is to observe how primate behavior changes in response to fire and burned land cover. I hope to establish a better understanding of how primates utilize these environments post burn in addition to further understanding into how fire affects ranging patterns across species.