Nkala Forest: Introduction of a forest-savanna mosaic field site of wild bonobos and its future prospects
Auteurs:Onishi, Ena ; Brooks, James; Leti, Innocent; Monghiemo, Claude; Bokika, Jean-Christophe; Shintaku, Yuta; Idani, Gen’ichi; Yamamoto, Shinya
Année de publication:2020
Date de publication:2020
Bonobos are one of humans’ two closest living relatives and display several remarkable similarities to us. To understand human evolution, it is essential to understand bonobos. However, compared to chimpanzees, research on bonobos is lacking. There are far fewer bonobo research sites, with far less environmental diversity. In this article, we introduce our wild bonobo research site located at the southwest end of bonobos’ range in the Forest Concession of Local Communities of the Mbali River (hereafter, “Mbali area”, previously called “Malebo”), in Lac Tumba landscape, Mai-Ndombe province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The site is unique for its forest-savanna mosaic environment, as previous studies on wild bonobos have mainly been conducted in rich tropical rainforests such as Wamba, Lomako and LuiKotale. Inogwabini et al. (2008) recently confirmed that wild bonobos inhabit a wider range of environments than previously thought, and since then much attention has been paid to wild bonobos in forest-savanna mosaic environments. Wild bonobos in Mbali thus present a promising and novel research opportunity for understanding bonobo behavior from a broader species level....