21.08.2019 - 16:54
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Department of Primatology

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig

phone: +49 (341) 3550 - 200
fax: +49 (341) 3550 - 299

Karline R. L. Janmaat

Research Group Leader

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Primatology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
phone: +49 341 3550 227
e-mail: karline_janmaat@[>>> Please remove the brackets! <<<]eva.mpg.de

Director, Mbendjele Foraging Project, RC

Research Interests

I am a cognitive behavioural ecologist and my research goal is to understand the evolutionary function of primate diversity of cognition among individuals. I am specialized in studying the cognitive strategies that wild primates use in their daily search for food, by using a combination of detailed observations of the characteristics of different socio-ecological contexts (e.g., in the zoo vs. the wild), longitudinal observations of the behaviours of individual monkeys, apes, and humans in a variety of populations and state of the art modelling techniques. I am particularly interested in how primates localise energy-rich food within a highly competitive rainforest environment in which food production periods are less seasonal and predictable than in temperate zones. My personal challenge is to reveal the existence of cognitive complex skills such as episodic-like memory, flexible planning and information transfer within natural evolutionarily relevant conditions in order to increase our understanding of how large-brained primates are able to buffer periods of scarcity and were able to evolve large and costly brains. My ultimate aim is to provide novel insights into the evolutionary function of primate foraging cognition and its variation and plasticity.