Des Moines Register
08-28-07
ISU, apes, kids to reap benefits of research deal
Collegians will work with the Great Ape Trust to improve autistic communication
and prevent extinction of primate species.
By PERRY BEEMAN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Iowa State University primatologist Jill Pruetz said a new agreement
announced Monday between the school and the Great Ape Trust of Iowa could
help the two Iowa institutions save the world's apes from extinction and open new
avenues of communication for humans.
The agreement, in the works for four years, was signed at the Great Ape Trust's
facility on the southeast side of Des Moines as some of the trust's residents,
several bonobos, looked on from their glass- enclosed quarters.
The agreement does not bring any additional spending to either institution
immediately, but ISU President Gregory Geoffroy said the collaboration is
expected to make it easier for both ISU and the trust to get grants for research.
Details are still to be ironed out, but Geoffroy said ISU professors and students
will be able to observe work at the trust, and the trust's scientists will take active
roles in helping to educate ISU students.
Pruetz's boss, Paul Lasley, head of ISU's department of anthropology, said
the agreement is solidly within the school's land-grant mission. Among the
potential connections:
- Educators and speech and communication researchers could build on work that
has shown promise in improving communication with autistic children using the
sign boards, or lexigrams, that bonobos and orangutans use to talk with
researchers at the Des Moines research center.
- Conservationists could learn about ape behavior in ways that could help
prevent what the United Nations has predicted will be the disappearance of the
world's four great-ape species - bonobos, orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas
- within 50 years.
- Veterinary medicine students could learn about animal welfare at the unique
facility, which was built from scratch with the apes' comfort in mind.
- Engineering students could study the energy-efficiency and high-tech computer
networking and communication equipment built into the trust's quarters.
- Landscape architecture students could help shape work in undeveloped areas
of the 230-acre Great Ape Trust grounds, which opened in 2004.
Especially appealing is the work on communication and cognition at the ape
research center, which is now home to seven bonobos and three orangutans,
Lasley said.
Eventually, more orangutans, and gorillas and chimpanzees, will live at the trust,
which would make it the only facility of its kind to have all four species of great
apes.
"If we can learn to communicate across species, there is the opportunity that
affords to communicate with disabled children, especially autistic children,"
Lasley said.
Researchers have found some evidence that autistic children can communicate
with the signs. "That is clearly within the land grant," Lasley said.
Pruetz has a research site in Senegal and has gained international fame this
year for research she has published on chimpanzees hunting with spears they
fashion from tree limbs. She said the potential work with autistic children is an
example of finding important applications for science.
The agreement between the university and the Des Moines research center is
eventually expected to lead to masters and doctoral programs in primatology at
ISU.
Des Moines businessman Ted Townsend, the founder of the Great Ape Trust,
said, "Our agreement to create the pre-eminent collaboration for primate studies
solidifies Great Ape Trust for the long term. This partnership for profound science
adds a unique and powerful distinction to our state."
Geoffroy said, "Together, the trust and Iowa State make a great team in the study
of primates and the environment that we share with them. ... Today, Great Ape
Trust is a truly unique and special educational and research resource - indeed, a
jewel for Iowa."
Reporter Perry Beeman can be reached at (515) 284-8538 or
pbeeman@dmreg.com