Over the past years, I was fortunate to balance my work as a scientist studying the evolution of great ape behaviour and culture in the wild, with active involvement in conservation and policy circles. This experience strengthened my view that behaviour and behavioural flexibility are adaptations and therefore important, albeit often overlooked, components of biodiversity. But how can we translate these ideas into realistic, everyday conservation practice?
I am excited to be starting at iDiv as Junior Research Group Leader of the new group Behavioural Conservation. My group will explore how we think about behaviours as entities in their own right, what their diversity means, and how the way we define units of behavioural and cultural diversity shapes not only our understanding of their utility and value to the animals themselves, but also our ability to integrate behaviour as a practical component of biodiversity in conservation. We will work to understand when and how behavioural and cultural traits can and should be monitored in management contexts, and how they might be incorporated into conservation targets alongside more familiar biodiversity indicators.
In addition to this conceptual and applied work, I will continue to investigate the evolutionary drivers and consequences of behavioural flexibility and its realized diversity in behaviourally flexible species, such as chimpanzees and bonobos. This includes ongoing research through the BonDiv Project on bonobos across the Congo Basin and the Moyen-Bafing Chimpanzee Project in Guinea’s savanna–mosaic landscape. I am looking forward to working in a place that values science communication and the role of research in guiding evidence-based conservation. I hope that my activities with the IUCN and other conservation entities will bring a useful perspective to the iDiv community and open opportunities for future collaborations.
Contact: Erin Wessling, erin.wessling@idiv.de