Towards a three-level neo-Tinbergenian approach to object play: Structure, causes and consequences of a behavioral puzzle

A History of Primatology in Canada and an Introduction to the Special Issue

Primatological research by anthropologists and evolutionary biologists based in Canada has expanded greatly since its inception ca. 60 years ago. The research foci of the founding primatologists were based on the study of social behaviors to understand human behavior. While Canadian anthropologists have remained interested in how study of our nonhuman primate relatives can inform our understanding of our own species, today the currently active generations of researchers are running labs and research groups focused on a broad range of questions and species and are using an expanded scope of methods to study everything from molecules to metapopulations. We envisioned that this issue of papers would highlight the innovative primate research being conducted by primatologists based in Canada and facilitate further collaboration among researchers, as well as providing a potentially useful introduction for students and postdocs interested in pursuing primatology in Canada. We begin with a historical description of how primatology started and developed in Canada, focusing on three founders of behavioral primatology in Canada - Frances Burton, Linda Fedigan, and Bernard Chapais. We then assess how the next generations have expanded the field significantly. We take a roughly geographical approach, from west to east, in describing the current research programs being done across Canada today and the broad range of topics being investigated. As part of this overview, we also introduce the 18 papers that are part of this special issue.

Animal play and evolution: Seven timely research issues about enigmatic phenomena

The nature of play in animals has been long debated, but progress is being made in characterizing play and its variants, documenting its distribution across vertebrate and invertebrate taxa, describing its mechanisms and development, and proposing testable theories about its origins, evolution, and adaptive functions. To achieve a deeper understanding of the functions and evolution of play, integrative and conceptual advances are needed in neuroscience, computer modeling, phylogenetics, experimental techniques, behavior development, and inter- and intra-specific variation. The special issue contains papers documenting many of these advances. Here, we describe seven timely areas where further research is needed to understand this still enigmatic class of phenomena more fully. Growing empirical and theoretical evidence reveals that play has been crucial in the evolution of behavior and psychology but has been underestimated, if not ignored, in both empirical and theoretical areas of evolutionary biology and neuroscience. Play research has important ramifications for understanding the evolution of cognition, emotion, and culture, and research on animals can be both informative and transformative.