Jean-Baptiste Leca

About

I am an Associate Professor and a Board of Governors Research Chair (Tier II: Origins & Explorations) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
I am also an Adjunct Faculty at the School of Natural and Engineering Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India.
I am an ethologist conducting field behavioral studies on the hows and whys of material culture in monkeys.

I have been conducting observational and experimental behavioral research on a variety of captive, semi-free ranging, and wild groups of primates since 1996. Some of the specific topics on which I have published include complex social interactions, group movement, innovative and traditional behaviors, social learning, object manipulation, object play, foraging activities, tool-use, token exchange, manual preference, and mate choice. I employ comparative, longitudinal, experimental, and physiological approaches in my research, that intersect with disciplines such as Psychology, Ethology, Anthropology, Ecology, and Endocrinology.

I primarily study the modes of acquisition and expression of more or less functional and arbitrary forms of object manipulation (e.g., object exploration, object play, extractive foraging, physical and symbolic tool use) that are socially influenced/learned and culturally maintained in several macaque species. My research program aims to explore the psychological processes and environmental factors underlying various object-directed behaviors in non-human primates, and shed some light on the developmental pathways and evolutionary origins of a hallmark of humanity: tool use.
Ultimately, I strive to view behavioral adaptations (e.g., tool use) and their hypothesized by-products (e.g., object play) as two complementary sides of the same evolutionary coin. During my postdoctoral studies (2003–2014) and my research as a faculty at the University of Lethbridge (2014–present), I have learned that a focus on by-products of behavioral adaptations can truly further our understanding of evolutionary processes and the diversity of behavioral outcomes they produce, including those with no obvious survival or reproductive values. This approach is significant because the selective role of behavioral by-products has received little attention among evolutionists. Thus, my scholarly work contributes to offering a pluralistic perspective on Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Employment

• University of Lethbridge Associate Professor
  2019 - Present
• University of Lethbridge Assistant Professor
  2014 - 2019
• University of Lethbridge Post-Doctoral Fellow
  2011 - 2014
• Universitas Udayana Visiting Researcher
  2010 - 2010
• Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University Post-Doctoral Fellow
  2007 - 2009
• University of Strasbourg Research Associate
  2006 - 2006
• Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University Post-Doctoral Fellow
  2003 - 2005

Education

• University of Strasbourg PhD in Ethology
  2002 - Present
• University of Strasbourg MSc in Behavioral Neuroscience
  1998 - Present

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications

Publications are unavailable.