Table of contents
Research interests
I’m broadly interested in human evolution, especially in the role of the interplay of social- and environmental factors during cognitive evolution. I aim to better understand how different aspects of sociability and environmental complexity are interrelated with the evolution of enhanced cognition by comparing humans to our closest relatives the great apes, as well as by using broader comparative approaches across species.
My current research focus is on the development of cognitive performance. I investigate which factors during immaturity affect cognitive performance as well as the size and complexity of skill repertoires by looking at the development of immature orangutans over multiple years. By comparing two populations of orangutans and by looking at broader patterns across a wider range of species I also aim to address these question on the evolutionary level.
Publications
ZORA Publication List
Download Options
Publications
-
Maternal Behavior in Sumatran Orangutans ($Pongo$ $abelii$) is Modulated by Mother-Offspring Characteristics and Socioecological Factors. International Journal of Primatology, 45(5):1021-1048.
-
Play Behavior Varies with Age, Sex, and Socioecological Context in Wild, Immature Orangutans (Pongo spp.). International Journal of Primatology, 45(4):739-773.
-
The ontogeny of nest-building behaviour in Sumatran orang-utans, Pongo abelii. Animal Behaviour, 211:53-67.
-
Short-term memory, attentional control and brain size in primates. Royal Society Open Science, 11(5):231541.
-
Alternative reproductive tactics of unflanged and flanged male orangutans revisited. American Journal of Primatology, 85(9):e23535.
-
Migrant orangutan males use social learning to adapt to new habitat after dispersal. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11:1158887.
-
Extended parental provisioning and variation in vertebrate brain sizes. PLoS Biology, 21(2):e3002016.
-
The economics of brain size evolution in vertebrates. Current Biology, 32(12):R697-R708.
-
The ontogeny of exploratory object manipulation behaviour in wild orangutans. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 3:e39.
-
The development and maintenance of sex differences in dietary breadth and complexity in Bornean orangutans. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 75(5):81.
-
Social interactions and interaction partners in infant orang-utans of two wild populations. Animal Behaviour, 166:183-191.
-
When ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: Fixed neurodevelopmental sequence of manipulative skills among primates. Science Advances, 6(30):eabb4685.
-
Early sociability fosters later exploratory tendency in wild immature orangutans. Science Advances, 6(2):eaaw2685.
-
Social learning among wild orang-utans. In: Dukes, Daniel; Clément, Fabrice. Foundations of Affective Social Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 25-40.