| Summary: | <p>This DPhil project explores established and putative self-medicative behaviors amongst wild chimpanzees (<em>Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii</em>) in the Budongo Forest, Uganda. The study spans eight and a half months of multidisciplinary data from two wild chimpanzee communities, Sonso and Waibira, supplemented by thirty years of longitudinal data. The literature review contextualizes Zoopharmacognosy, the study of non-human self-medication, tracing its epistemic origins. Additionally, it summarizes previously established chimpanzee self-medicative behaviors and explores theoretical frameworks for understanding the evolutionary origins of non-human self-medication. Following the literature review, empirical studies are presented, reporting novel healthcare behaviors, introducing new methods for identifying putative medicinal resources, investigating pharmacological properties of suspected medicinal resources, and assessing the medicinal value of bark in chimpanzee diets.</p>
<p>These multidisciplinary studies not only advance our comprehension of chimpanzee self-medication but also have broader implications for paleoanthropology and conservation. Beyond enriching our general understanding of chimpanzee behavior, our findings may also lend insight into the evolutionary origins of modern human medicine. Using chimpanzees to help model the medicinal behaviors of our early hominin ancestors may provide valuable insights into our ancestors' exploitation of natural remedies. This may also help to illuminate potential selection pressures on the development of these behaviors and more generally on modern-human healthcare systems. Finally, our research has direct implications for conservation efforts, informing the protection of medicinal plant resources in a rapidly deforested world.</p>
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