Wildlife and Wildfires: Chimp Behavior and Early Human Implications

How do chimpanzees and other wildlife respond to fire in an East African mosaic–woodland ecosystem?

Dr. Alexander Piel, Associate Professor of Anthropology at University College London, will describe some species’ exploitation of burned landscapes as well as the costs and benefits associated with living with annual fires. These patterns provide insight into how animals adapt to increasingly frequent and widespread fires and highlight fire as a key selective pressure in African ecosystems. Ultimately, these findings offer a comparative framework for understanding how early hominins may have navigated fire-prone environments, shaping the evolutionary context of human-fire interactions.

Moderator: Dr. Briana Pobiner, paleoanthropologist and educator at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

This program is part of the ongoing HOT (Human Origins Today) Topics series and will be presented as a Zoom video webinar. A link will be emailed to all registrants.

Image caption: Chimpanzees from the Issa Valley, Tanzania, exhibiting a grooming hand clasp.

Image credit: Pascal Gagneux/GMERC