Research Assistant Internship - Chimpanzees - Vallée des Singes, France

[Gregorio de Chevalier]

Type of offer: Research assistant internship

Duration of the internship: 6-8 weeks (starting late August / early September 2022)

Application deadline: rolling admission; interview phase starting mid-August

Internship location: Vallée des Singes zoo, Romagne, France

Conditions:
- Unpaid internship, starting late August or early September;
- Lodging at the park provided free of charge

Context: The internship is part of an interdisciplinary thesis project initiated in December 2021, and codirected by S. Prat (Paleoanthropology), C. Garcia (behavioral ecology) and S. Bouret (cognitive neuroscience). The project aims to characterize decision-making in the context of foraging in primates, with a comparative and interdisciplinary approach including both zoological park and field studies. The field studies aim to assess the cognitive processes involved in the management of the cost/benefit balance associated with food search, according to socio-ecological constraints. Captive studies aim to isolate and manipulate spatio-temporal information relevant to foraging. This interdisciplinary project is part of a partnership between several research teams – UMR 7206 - Primates & Environment Interactions Team (C. Garcia, B. Simmen), UMR 7225 (S. Bouret), UMR 7194 (S. Prat, A. Bardo) and the Vallée des Singes zoo.

Project and goals: The intern will work with our research team on an experiment conducted with a group of chimpanzees housed at the Vallée des Singes zoo (Romagne, France). The goal of our experiment is to assess the ability of chimpanzees to learn and use spatio-temporal information on food availability, in accordance with a protocol recently published by the team of K. Janmaat (Ozturk et al., Animal Cognition (2021) 24:569–582). The protocol includes setting up of experimental devices in the park, and the extraction of behavioral data from videos and from direct observation.

Required skills:
- Accuracy and compliance with protocols
- Ability to work outdoors
- Intermediate level French (required for communicating with zookeepers)

Other valued qualifications:
- Work autonomy
- Ability to communicate
- Ability to adapt to the schedule and work with the team of the zoological park

Application process: interested applicants should send a CV and letter of motivation to to Gregorio de Chevalier ( gregorio...@gmail.com) and Sébastien Bouret (sebastien...@cnrs.fr); early applicants will be given preference; interviews will be conducted in French;

Contacts: For any further questions, feel free to contact our team at gregorio...@gmail.com