[BERG] BERG seminar today, 16:00 (online)

[Pawel Fedurek]

Dear BERGers,

A quick reminder that Elodie Freymann (University of Oxford) is giving a seminar today entitled "Applying Collocation and APRIORI Analyses to Chimpanzee Diets: methods for investigating non-random food combinations in primate self-medication". Please find the abstract below. This will be an online seminar. This is the last BERG seminar this semester! We will start a new series in the Fall.


Abstract: Historically, the study of animal self-medication has focused on identifying novel medicinal resources through recognizing unusual or characteristic behaviors like leaf-swallowing or bitter pith chewing. While it is easy to consider these therapeutic self-medicative behaviors isolated occurrences, it is premature to rule out the notion that primate self-medication is a more holistic phenomenon. Rather, like humans, chimpanzees may be using multiple self-medicative resources throughout the duration of a given illness, or within a short period of time, a concept we call the Self-Medicative Food Combination Hypothesis. Identifying non-random resource combinations can, therefore, illuminate potentially synergistic relationships between medicinal resource candidates. In this talk, I will present analytical tools with which such a hypothesis can be tested, in a novel context, to investigate frequently occurring food combinations within the Budongo chimpanzee diet. Specifically, I will evaluate the use of Collocation and APRIORI analyses as effective exploratory tools for identifying binary combinations, and APRIORI as an effective for multi-item rule associations, using a case study from my own data. If non-random food associations can be identified in long-term data sets, a new paradigm for evaluating feeding ecology may be needed. One which evaluates primate diets as holistically calculated rather than as opportunistically encountered.


MSTeams link:


https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2F_%23%2Fl%2Fmeetup-join%2F19%3A9823d93069124396a7a40d99c8272bea%40thread.tacv2%2F1706004113357%3Fcontext%3D%257b%2522Tid%2522%253a%25224e8d09f7-cc79-4ccb-9149-a4238dd17422%2522%252c%2522Oid%2522%253a%25221a69c354-6581-4fd4-8530-c53f9ead0876%2522%257d%26anon%3Dtrue&type=meetup-join&deeplinkId=a1b73d26-7d67-4bcc-acbd-a387a288132b&directDl=true&msLaunch=true&enableMobilePage=true&suppressPrompt=true


-------------------------------

Dr Pawel Fedurek (he/his)

Lecturer in Psychology

Behaviour and Evolution Research Group (BERG)



Division of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences

University of Stirling

Stirling, FK9 4LA
Scotland, UK



Tel: +44 (0)1786 467844<tel:+441786467844>

Twitter: @fedurekp<https://twitter.com/fedurekp>  @BERG_Stirling​<https://twitter.com/BERG_Stirling>

Staff page<https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/1080868> | BERG page<https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties/natural-sciences/our-research/research-groups/behaviour-and-evolution-research-group/>



I aim to reply within 3 working days (my working days are between Monday and Friday).

________________________________
Scotland’s University for Sporting Excellence
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159