Abstract
While the exploitation of aquatic fauna and flora has been documented in several primate species to date, the evolutionary contexts and mechanisms behind the emergence of this behavior in both human and non-human primates remain largely overlooked. Yet, this issue is particularly important for our understanding of human evolution, as hominins represent not only the primate group with the highest degree of adaptedness to aquatic environments, but also the only group in which true coastal and maritime adaptations have evolved. As such, in the present study we review the available literature on primate foraging strategies related to the exploitation of aquatic resources and their putative associated cognitive operations. We propose that aquatic resource consumption in extant primates can be interpreted as a highly site-specific behavioral expression of a generic adaptive foraging decision-making process, emerging in sites at which the local cost-benefit trade-offs contextually favor aquatic over terrestrial foods. Within this framework, we discuss the potential impacts that the unique intensification of this behavior in hominins may have had on the evolution of the human brain and spatial ecology.
Highlights
Under the framework of optimal foraging theory (Stephens and Krebs, 1986), animals are thought to have evolved foraging strategies that increase individual fitness by maximizing the benefits while minimizing the costs and risks related to the exploitation of resources in their natural habitats (Charnov, 1976)
The evolution of foraging strategies must be accompanied by the evolution of (i) cognitive abilities that allow for a contextual computation of costs and benefits resulting in the decision-making processes expressed as behavior (Rosati, 2017) and (ii) their specific neuroanatomical correlates, such as overall brain size (e.g., DeCasien et al, 2017) or the size of specific brain regions involved in those processes (e.g., Louail et al, 2019)
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | www.frontiersin.org de Chevalier et al Aquatic Foraging and Hominin Evolution considering this framework for investigating the underpinnings of differences in foraging niches and territorial occupation patterns between primate species, and its application in the context of human evolution may provide essential insights on what mechanisms have allowed hominins to inhabit an unmatched variety of ecosystems when compared to non-human primate species
Summary
Under the framework of optimal foraging theory (Stephens and Krebs, 1986), animals are thought to have evolved foraging strategies that increase individual fitness by maximizing the benefits while minimizing the costs and risks related to the exploitation of resources in their natural habitats (Charnov, 1976). The evolution of cognitive traits related to decision-making, spatial memory and executive control, for example, would be adaptive toward optimizing the trade-offs between costs and benefits of foraging in complex and fluctuating environments (Rosati, 2017; Garcia et al, 2021) In support of this hypothesis, a recent study by DeCasien et al (2017) using data from a wide diversity of primate species provided evidence that diet is a better predictor of total relative brain size in primates—an measure for global cognitive skills (Deaner et al, 2007; Shultz and Dunbar, 2010)—when compared to social variables, such as group size. This observation is consistent with evidence presented by DeCasien and Higham (2019), suggesting that the mosaic brain evolution observed in primates is linked to niche specialization, with the evolution of the size of different brain regions being selected according to specific ecological characteristics of distinct primate species (Louail et al, 2019)
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