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

Abstract

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.