About

Dr. Jessica Lynch is an Associate Professor in the UCLA Department of Anthropology, with a focus on biological anthropology. She serves as the Associate Director for the Institute of Society and Genetics (ISG) and is a co-editor for the journal “Neotropical Primates,” a publication of Conservation International. Her research centers on the evolution of diversity in socially learned behaviors, mating strategies, and social structuring in Neotropical primates, particularly within the genus Cebus, the capuchin monkeys. Her work investigates how populations of capuchins differ in social and sexual behaviors and grouping patterns, providing a comparative system for studying both cultural and genetic variation. Her research is funded in part by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Lynch’s scholarly contributions include numerous publications on primate behavior, evolution, and ecology, emphasizing the diversification and social complexity of Neotropical primates.

Research topics

• Geography
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Archaeology
• Biology

Selected publications

• Phylogenomics of Amazonian squirrel monkeys (Saimiri: Primates, Cebidae)

  Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2025-10-31

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Ficha de Saimiri collinsi

  Datasets - Sistema SALVE - ICMBio · 2025-03-14

  datasetOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Mitochondrial DNA for Phylogeny Building: Assessing Individual and Grouped mtGenes as Proxies for the mtGenome in Platyrrhines

  American Journal of Primatology · 2025-03-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Phylogenetic trees are analytic tools used in primate studies to elucidate evolutionary relationships. Because of its relative ease to sequence and rapid evolution compared to nuclear genomes, mitochondrial DNA is frequently used for phylogeny building. This project evaluated the effectiveness of using individual or grouped mitochondrial genes (mtGenes) as a proxy for the mitochondrial genome (mtGenome) in phylogeny building within two nested primate datasets, Cebidae and Platyrrhini, with differing divergence dates. mtGene utility rankings were determined based on congruence values to the mtGenome tree. mtGenes trees were also assessed on tree resolution and ability to sort nested clades. We found that most individual mtGenes, including ribosomal genes (12S and 16S), COX genes, most ND genes, and d-Loop are not appropriate for use as proxies for the mtGenome when tree building in either the Cebidae or Platyrrhini set. On average, grouped mtGenes outperformed individual mtGenes in both sets, and mtGene and grouped mtGene rankings varied between sets. Pairing CYB and COX3 together or pairing ND2 and CYB worked well in both the Cebidae set and the Platyrrhini set. We also found that nucleotide diversity is not a predictor of mtGene performance. Instead, it may be that unique mtGene or mtGene system evolutionary history impacts mtGene performance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ficha de Saimiri macrodon

  Datasets - Sistema SALVE - ICMBio · 2025-03-17

  datasetOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Characterization of Stone Tool Use in Wild Groups of Critically Endangered Yellow‐Breasted Capuchin Monkeys (<i>Sapajus xanthosternos</i>)

  American Journal of Biological Anthropology · 2025-02-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  OBJECTIVES: A hallmark of hominin evolution is the advent and diversification of stone tool use, and biological anthropologists have a particular interest in characterizing tool use behaviors in different hominin species. Robust capuchins, the genus Sapajus, are an excellent convergent model system for understanding tool use evolution, principally in the context of foraging, in terms of how they use stones to process hard fruits. However, most published studies of capuchin tool use in the wild focus on the species Sapajus libidinosus. In order to strengthen comparative analyses, it is important to do research across robust capuchin species to understand tool use capacities and variation across the genus. The first indirect evidence that reported tool use in wild S. xanthosternos was in 2009, but since that time no additional publications have described this behavior for this species. In this study we provide the first complete characterization of tool use in wild S. xanthosternos for two areas within Montes Claros, Minas Gerais state, Brazil: Santa Rosa de Lima district, and Lapa Grande State Park. We compare our findings to the stone tool use characteristics reported in wild Sapajus libidinosus and other capuchin monkey species. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In monthly surveys from January to September 2018, we walked trails through the two study areas and categorized tool use site characteristics, including anvil area, height, and perimeter; hammer stone weight; and species of fruit utilized. Additionally, we utilized camera traps at high-use sites. RESULTS: We describe the tools used by S. xanthosternos at 169 sites clustered in seven Nutcracking Areas, for processing three different species of encased fruit: Macaúba (Acrocomia aculeata), Cansaçao (Cnidoscolus pubescens), and Guariroba (Syagrus oleracea). With camera traps, we directly observed tool use behavior for the first time in this species. DISCUSSION: Sapajus xanthosternos displayed tool use patterns very similar to those of S. libidinosus. The main difference was in regards to physical force; in our study, the mean weight of stones used by S. xanthosternos was higher than the mean reported for S. libidinosus at most field sites; however, there was no difference in hammer weight between S. libidinosus and S. xanthosternos when hammering Macaúba. We also registered the heaviest hammer stone for tool use (7.675 kg) known for the robust capuchin genus. It is clear from our study that tool use capacity and characteristics are conserved across the radiation of extant Sapajus, suggesting a possible stone tool use cognitive capacity spanning up to 3.3 million years of diversification within this genus. Unlike stone tool use occurring throughout the year for S. libidinosus, at our study sites S. xanthosternos used nutcracking tools only during the dry season.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ficha de Cebus unicolor

  Datasets - Sistema SALVE - ICMBio · 2025-02-04

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Stone Tool Use by Black‐Horned Capuchin Monkeys (<i>Sapajus nigritus cucullatus</i>) in an Urban Park in Londrina, Brazil

  American Journal of Primatology · 2025-01-01 · 7 citations

  article

  Tool use to crack open palm nuts has been observed extensively in some capuchin monkey species. However, for southern black-horned capuchin monkeys (Sapajus nigritus cucullatus), there is only one published record of stone tool use from the 1990s, from an urban park in Londrina, Brazil. In the present study, we returned to this urban park to systematically investigate the hammer-and-anvil sites used to crack nuts by this capuchin monkey population. We analyzed the fruit and shell remnants resulting from hammering to test the following hypotheses: (1) hammers at tool-use sites are actively chosen for size and/or weight, (2) tool use sites that are closer to a tree of the processed plant species are more frequently used, and (3) there is no seasonal effect modulating hammer-and-anvil use for processing nuts. We located and identified 205 tool-use sites through active search within the park, and we measured and weighed the tools involved in hammering activity. We compared hammer weight and size to that of the comparable material available in the environment and found that hammer size and weight differed significantly from that of the raw materials found in the environment, suggesting active choice of the hammers. We identified three plant species for which nuts were processed through tool use: Syagrus romanzoffiana, Acrocomia aculeata and Terminalia catappa. Through measuring the distance between each tool-use site and the nearest tree of the plant species processed there, we found that closer proximity between the tool-use site and the nearest target tree (Syagrus and Acrocomia) increased cracking frequency. We returned to each site three times during the study year to determine if new tool use activity had occurred, and our data indicate habitual use of tools to crack open nuts throughout the year, with no large differences between seasons.

  PublisherDOI

• Niche Expansion and the Natural History of Human-Cat Kinship

  Current Anthropology · 2025-07-18 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Domestic cats (Felis catus) have flourished alongside humans for 10,000 years. What accounts for this success? We argue here that cats and humans collaborate in this success because cats are very good at niche expansion across multiple dimensions into new human-facilitated niche space and at niche space saturation across both new and old niche spaces. Cats are neither simply biologically adapted nor simply domesticated by humans but possess their own agency. Cats involve themselves in human projects and benefit from human care and kinship; they develop forms of tolerance and trust but also independence and self-reliance. To demonstrate this thesis about cats, we explore the various dimensions of the cat niche, and in each case we ask, how does that dimension differ between modern cats and their wild ancestors? How have humans collaborated through time with cats to expand the cat niche in multiple dimensions? What have been the cumulative effects or consequences of these expansions? We show that even attempts to control or eradicate cats can play into forms of niche expansion. Our goal is to direct scholarly attention to the relations of participation among humans and other species, beyond the narrow focus on species as more or less isolated and stable bundles of traits and behaviors.

  PublisherDOI

• Ficha de Cebus albifrons

  Datasets - Sistema SALVE - ICMBio · 2025-02-06

  datasetOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Ficha de Aotus nigriceps

  Datasets - Sistema SALVE - ICMBio · 2025-01-23

  datasetOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jean P. Boubli

  University of Salford

  13 shared

• Michael E. Alfaro

  University of California, Los Angeles

  9 shared

• Anthony Di Fiore

  The University of Texas at Austin

  7 shared

• Marcela Guimarães Moreira Lima

  Universidade Federal do Pará

  6 shared

• Izeni Pires Farias

  6 shared

• Alexandre Luis Padovan Aleixo

  Vale Technological Institute

  4 shared

• Amely Branquinho Martins

  4 shared

• Anthony B. Rylands

  4 shared

Labs

• Jessica Lynch LabPI