Julia Fischer How Is Kinship a Factor for Social Relations of Male Guinea Baboons?
Julia Fischer is Professor of Cognitive Ethology at the German Primate Center and the University of Göttingen as well as an author and editor, with cognition and social behavior as one of her major research interests. She habilitated at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and was awarded the Heisenberg fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Fischer is a member of the Göttingen as well as the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and Humanities and received the Grüter-Preis für Wissenschaftsvermittlung in 2013.
Area of Research
Cognition and Social Behavior, Evolution of Communication
since 2004
Professor of Primate Cognition
University of Göttingen (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
and the German Primate Center
2000-2004
Postdoctoral Fellow
Max Planck Society
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
2004
Habilitation
Leipzig University (Universität Leipzig)
Thesis "Evolution of Vocal Communication in Primates”
1996
PhD in Biology
Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin)
Thesis "Categorical Perception of Species-Specific Sounds in Barbary Macaques”
1993
Diploma in Biology
Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin)
- American Anthropologist
- American Journal of Primatology
- Science
- Behaviour
- Biochemistry and Behaviour
- Biology Letters
- Current Biology
- Ethology
- Folia Primatologica
- Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
- Journal of Comparative Psychology
- Journal of Experimental Biology
- Pharmacology
- PNAS
- Proceedings of the Royal Society-B
- Trends in Cognitive Science
- Trends in Neuroscience
- Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
- Deutsche Primatologische Gesellschaft
- Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft
- Ethologische Gesellschaft
- European Federation of Primatology
- Internationale Primatologische Gesellschaft
Fellowships
- Member of Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (since 2014)
- Member of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (since 2007)
- DFG Heisenberg Fellow (2004)
- Fellow of Die Junge Akademie (2003-2008), President (2007-2008)
- Leibniz Science Campus for Primate Cognition; Leibniz Association (2015-2018)
- Social Comparison Processes in Animals; as part of DFG Forschergruppe FOR2150 (2015-2017)
- Graduate School “Foundations of Primate Social Behaviour”, funded by Leibniz Gemeinschaft (2011-2014)
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (2010-2015)
- Co-PI Courant Center for the Evolution of Social Behaviour (2007-2014)
© Michael Moser
German Primate Center
The Deutsches Primatenzentrum GmbH (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen was founded in 1977. It is a non-university research institute and member of the Leibniz Association.The DPZ conducts biological and biomedical basic research with and about non-human primates in the fields of infectious diseases, neuroscience, and primate biology. As a center for expertise and reference in all issues related to primate research and husbandry, the DPZ breeds monkeys for its own research purposes and lends support to other publicly funded scientific institutes. The DPZ operates four field stations in the tropics. The DPZ is actively involved in numerous national and international research collaborations and is engaged in scientific communication and policy advice. (Source: DPZ)
Department
Cognitive Ethology Laboratory
"Our research group "Cognitive Ethology" is based at the German Primate Center in Goettingen, Germany, and linked to the University of Goettingen. We study cognition and communication from an evolutionary and ecological perspective, primarily in nonhuman primates. We focus on three aspects: firstly, we are interested in the information content of vocal signals and the decoding of this information; secondly, we study the development of cognitive and communicative abilities, both from an ontogenetic and a phylogenetic perspective. Third, we investigate how social system, ecology, and phylogenetic descent shape the structure of signaling systems. The ultimate goal of our research program is to contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of language." (Source)
Map
By combining behavioral observations with GPS data on the whereabouts and data on genetic relatedness of males of a Guinea baboon population, the study presented in this video provides new insights into their social structure: The species forms structured multi-level societies. Male Guinea baboons are found to be exceptional in terms of their spatial tolerance and their organizing principle, JULIA FISCHER explains. As opposed to other male non-humane primates, relatedness is not the sole determinant of association, allowing cooperation beyond kinship.
LT Video Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10153
Male Tolerance and Male-Male Bonds in a Multilevel Primate Society
- Annika Patzelt, Gisela H. Kopp, Ibrahima Ndao, Urs Kalbitzer, Dietmar Zinner and Julia Fischer
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
- Published in 2014
