生物谷报道：长期以来，人们认为不同黑猩猩群体之间的差异乃是遗传水平上的不同所致。但是利物浦大学的一个研究小组却发现，迁移到其它群落的黑猩猩的行为会发生改变，证明了他们也会跟人类一样建立自己的“文化”。
图片说明：黑猩猩种群间存在“文化”差异。
（图片来源：physorg网站）
灵长动物专家Stephen Lycett博士解释说，我们已了解不同群落的黑猩猩的行为表现不同，但我们不知道为什么。有人认为幼小的黑猩猩从双亲遗传得到某些基因，并发育成特定的行为特征，但这个假设没有确切的证据支持。还有人认为这些行为是黑猩猩的生物本能，它们并不像我们人类一样有文化。
研究人员在观察黑猩猩如何制备食物时发现，一个群落的黑猩猩用石头做工具敲开坚果，另一个群落的黑猩猩既用石头也用木棍。他们发现，这些制备食物的方法，在过去的100,000年间从非洲东部流传到西部（非洲东西部相距约4000千米，生物谷注）。这个研究团队也发现，其它技巧如装饰等也是如此。该研究表明，不同行为与黑猩猩如何进行社会化组织有关，而不是之前所认为的由遗传所决定。
为了进一步研究该理论，研究人员建立了非洲东部和西部黑猩猩的行为进化树，以及其遗传进化树。他们本来期望找出具有相似遗传背景的黑猩猩，也具有相似的行为特性。但结果却发现，具有相似行为特性的黑猩猩，遗传背景并不一样。
Lycett博士进一步说明，这解释了为什么一些群落会采用特定的行为和方法去适应不同的环境，比如相似的找食物的方法。
该项研究结果发表在2008年1月8日的PNAS杂志上。（生物谷 www.bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Published online before print October 29, 2007, 10.1073/pnas.0707930104
PNAS | November 6, 2007 | vol. 104 | no. 45 | 17588-17592
From the Cover
ANTHROPOLOGY
Phylogenetic analyses of behavior support existence of culture among wild chimpanzees
Stephen J. Lycett,, Mark Collard, and William C. McGrew¶
British Academy Centenary Research Project, School of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Hartley Building, Brownlow Street, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom; Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6; and ¶Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge CB2 1QH, United Kingdom
Edited by Alan Walker, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, and approved September 17, 2007 (received for review August 24, 2007)
Culture has long been considered to be not only unique to humans, but also responsible for making us qualitatively different from all other forms of life. In recent years, however, researchers studying chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have challenged this idea. Natural populations of chimpanzees have been found to vary greatly in their behavior. Because many of these interpopulation differences cannot be readily explained by ecological factors, it has been argued that they result from social learning and, therefore, can be regarded as cultural variations. Recent studies showing social transmission in captive chimpanzee populations suggest that this hypothesis is plausible. However, the culture hypothesis has been questioned on the grounds that the behavioral variation may be explained at a proximate level by genetic differences between subspecies. Here we use cladistic analyses of the major cross-site behavioral data set to test the hypothesis that the behavioral differences among the best-documented chimpanzee populations are genetically determined. If behavioral diversity is primarily the product of genetic differences between subspecies, then population data should show less phylogenetic structure when data from a single subspecies (P. t. schweinfurthii) are compared with data from two subspecies (P. t. verus and P. t. schweinfurthii) analyzed together. Our findings are inconsistent with the hypothesis that the observed behavioral patterns of wild chimpanzee populations can be explained primarily by genetic differences between subspecies. Instead, our results support the suggestion that the behavioral patterns are the product of social learning and, therefore, can be considered cultural.
social learning | cultural transmission | Pan troglodytes | cladistics
