Interview: Barbara Fruth, Primate Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

"Well, as the name says, evolution means something evolves and develops, and the contrary is, the opposite, is stagnation, so it would mean it's going to death, it will die, so evolution is the thing we need in order to develop."

DW-TV: First let's start with a personal question. What is it about your field that you found so interesting that you wanted to spend your life studying it?


Barbara Fruth: When I started to study bonobos, they were not yet known from the wild. There was a lot of data from captivity and this was the sexy apes who solve all conflicts by sex and so we thought, that's really strange, they have the same habitat almost as chimpanzees have, at least in the western part of Africa, so we started in the wild to have a closer look at that species, and to compare it with chimpanzees as well.


DW-TV: Exactly what are some of the differences that have evolved between bonobos and chimpanzees over the past few million years?


Barbara Furth: Well, the most striking thing for us is that they are female-dominated, or at least egalitarian. So the female is the hunter in that society, they share meat, they divide food. This is one of the most striking differences. They are not that fierce in many respects. They have in anatomical respects a lot of differences, they are more slender and a bit more upright, less wide, but all the other things, like sexual dimorphism, are really similar between both species, so the behavior is the interesting difference.


DW-TV: How have DNA sequencing and other new technologies revolutionized evolutionary studies?


Barbara Furth: Well, when Darwin did his studies he only knew phenotypes, so he knew that a body would have a certain shape and nature would select upon the phenotype, and when we got to know that everything was triggered by DNA, this was the unit that became interesting in terms of the evolutionary process. Of course we know that that's not the entire truth. There is more to that than only genes.


DW-TV: Environmental change is the key to evolution, so if you have an environment that's stagnant, does that mean that evolution does not occur, or that it only occurs very slowly?


Barbara Fruth: Well, as the name says, evolution means something evolves and develops, and the contrary is, the opposite, is stagnation, so it would mean it's going to death, it will die, so evolution is the thing we need in order to develop.



DW-TV: We're facing a unique situation at the moment where we're dealing wth a changing climate and these changes have been caused by one particular species, namely humankind. How are those changes affecting other species?


Barbara Fruth: Climatic change is a catastrophe for all living creatures on this planet. Bonobos are lucky enough to live in the largest remaining rainforest habitat of Africa, so they've not yet experienced the problem, but all chimpanzees, particularly those in western Africa, have big problems with it, because the draft goes further down south and they are almost close to extinction now.


DW-TV: Evolutionary studies can be kind of like solving a jigsaw puzzle. There are all sorts of different pieces that have to be fitted together. Do you think that with the technological developments we've seen in the past years, that it's becoming as a whole a more exact science?


Barbara Fruth: Oh, definitely. It started out with the genetics, that helped us a lot, and discovering evolutionary processes, but there are a lot of other modern technologies that help us to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.


DW-TV: Do you think that as a species human beings have reached the high point now, or is there more to be expected in the future?


Barbara Fruth: I'm sure humanity will evolve. The question is where will we go, and I think it is very important that we all take up responsibility for how we evolve because now it's cultural evolution that counts, and how we deal with our environment is the important question for the future.


DW-TV: In most every scienctific field, from physics to chemistry, we've seen theories come and then go again. Do you think that Darwin's theories will be able to stand the test of time?


Barbara Fruth: Oh, I'm sure. I mean, we have been happy with it for 150 years, and I'm sure it will accompany us in the future as well.


Interview: Heather DeLisle