Topic: field experiments

Daniel Simberloff discusses biological invasions, ecological theory and evidence from field experiments. The conversation explores how introduced species alter communities and ecosystems, and how long-running research informs conservation and management decisions.

I will present field experiments on vervet monkeys testing physical and social cognition, with a focus on social learning. The understanding of the emergence of cultural behaviours in animals has advanced significantly with contributions from complementary approaches: natural observations and controlled field experiments. Experiments with wild vervet monkeys highlight that monkeys are selective about ‘who’ they learn from socially and that they will abandon personal foraging preferences in favour of group norms new to them. The reported findings highlight the feasibility to study cognition und