2025-11-24 マックス・プランク研究所(MPI)
Adult Sumatran orangutans have knowledge of around 250 edible food items.© The Suaq Project
<関連情報>
- https://www.mpg.de/25748327/orangutans-can-t-master-their-complex-diets-without-cultural-knowledge
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02350-y
文化は、オランウータンの食生活の発達を個体の潜在能力を超えて推進する上で非常に重要である Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials
Elliot Howard-Spink,Claudio Tennie,Tatang Mitra Setia,Deana Perawati,Carel van Schaik,Brendan Barrett,Andrew Whiten & Caroline Schuppli
Nature Human Behaviour Published:24 November 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02350-y
Abstract
Humans accumulate extensive repertoires of culturally transmitted information, reaching breadths exceeding any individual’s innovation capacity (culturally dependent repertoires). It is unclear whether other animals require social learning to acquire adult-like breadths of information in the wild, including by key developmental milestones, or whether animals are capable of constructing their knowledge repertoires primarily through independent exploration. We investigated whether social learning mediates orangutans’ diet-repertoire development, by translating an extensive dataset describing wild orangutans’ behaviour into an empirically validated agent-based model. In this model, diets reliably developed to adult-like breadths only when simulated immatures benefited from multiple forms of social learning. Moreover, social learning was required for diets to reach adult-like breadths by the age immatures become independent from their mothers. This implies that orangutan diets constitute culturally dependent repertoires, with social learning enhancing the rate and outcomes of diet development past individual potentials. We discuss prospective avenues for researching the building of cultural repertoires in hominids and other species.
