Ecology and Habitat Use of the Endangered Primate Macaca maura (H.R. Schinz, 1825), Endemic to the Karst Forests of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Early traumatic experience has lifelong effects on social integration of chimpanzees
Primate social groups have traditionally been described according to their social cohesion, with species classified as having either a cohesive or a fluid social system. In recent years this modal classification has come under scrutiny. It has been suggested that primate groups should instead be characterised by their relative degree of fission-fusion dynamics, which refers to the variation in spatial cohesion and individual group membership over time. Whilst the concept of fission-fusion dynamics has become generally accepted, its central framework has not been implemented. Rather than quantifying the degree of fission-fusion dynamics, this measure has been used anecdotally, with study groups being described as having either a low or a high degree of fission-fusion dynamics. Quantification of fission-fusion dynamics is crucial for making comparisons across populations and species. Here, we propose and explore two complementary methods for quantifying fission-fusion dynamics, using olive baboons (Papio anubis) as a case study. We collected data on party size, party composition, spatial cohesion, and inter-individual distances in two troops (Gamgam & Kwano) of wild olive baboons in Gashaka-Gumti National Park, Nigeria, over a 12-month period. First, fission-fusion dynamics where quantified by the coefficient of variation for the measurements in party size, the rate of party composition change, and inter-individual distances of focal animals. Second, we fitted single and mixed distributions to the inter-individual distances as a measure of the degree of fragmentation. We found that the two methods gave us similar results, and the troops differed in their degree of fission-fusion dynamics. The Gamgam troop rarely fragmented and parties were often large. The Kwano troop, by contrast, frequently split into small parties that were relatively stable over time. These results indicate that fission-fusion dynamics can differ between troops within a single population.
Hand Preference during Tool Use in Wild Bearded Capuchins
Folia Primatologica, 2015
The preferential use of one limb (lateralization) has been observed in many species. This lateralization reflects functional asymmetries of the brain. Right-handedness and left-hemisphere dominance seem to be the norm in humans. However, suggestions that vertebrates, particularly non-human primates, show handedness are contentious. Tool use could be a driver of handedness. Here I investigated hand bias during tool use activities in groups of wild capuchins (Sapajus libidinosus). I observed the use of feeding tools in wild capuchin monkeys living in the dry Caatinga forests of the Serra da Capivara National Park, Piaui, Brazil. Capuchins used three major types of feeding tools: (a) tools for probing; (b) tools for pounding/cracking, and (c) digging stones to extract tubers or roots. I recorded hand use in 118 tool use bouts. These different types of tools had different motor demands; digging tools apparently favour right-hand use. The harsh Caatinga habitat poses a strong selective pressure for tool using, which might favour increased laterality and right-hand bias. However, the extent of right-handedness associated with tool use, particularly for digging, can only be fully evaluated following studies with larger sample sizes.
5th Iberian Primatological Congress
Folia Primatologica, 2016
Countries such as Guinea and Sierra Leone are not only home to some of the largest remaining populations of the West African subspecies of chimpanzee, but also host vast numbers of native oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) and areas of land sought after for large scale oil palm industrial development. The feral oil palm often acts as a prime resource for both humans and chimpanzees across vast mosaics of fallow areas, cultivated fields, riverine areas, forest fragments and human settlements. Since the majority of chimpanzees in both these countries occur outside protected areas, many populations rely on the feral oil palm, possibly as well as human cultivars, for their subsistence. Such landscapes have, in some cases, sustained human-chimpanzee coexistence for generations; however, more recent, rapid changes in landscape structure and use are posing new challenges and fuelling increased intolerance towards chimpanzees and other wildlife. Much of my research centres on understanding how human and chimpanzee behaviour, perceptions and culture influence their ability to share the same landscape and on assessing the main challenges to people's tolerance towards wildlife. The case of the oil palm illustrates perfectly the complexities of coexistence and the challenges that lie ahead for biodiversity conservation and development. Variation in how and where chimpanzees use the oil palm reflects both their ecological and cultural adaptation to human-modified landscapes. Chimpanzee communities across West Africa may use the feral oil palm for nesting and/or for feeding purposes, while the oil palm provides humans with numerous products of immense domestic and commercial value. It is essential for
Folia primatologica, 2011
Research over the last decades has revealed amazing continuity between human and nonhuman primate cognition, but also many remarkable differences. The cooperative breeding hypothesis posits that these differences are linked to shared infant care, which was adopted in the hominin, but not in the other great ape lineages. To evaluate this hypothesis, we will (1) identify general cognitive correlates of cooperative breeding among non-human primate species, and (2) extrapolate the consequences if these correlates are added to the reconstructed last common ancestor of humans and great apes. In the first part, we review studies suggesting that cooperatively breeding primates show increased performance in socio-cognitive tasks such as social learning, cooperative problem solving, perspective taking tasks and information donation, but not in cognitive tasks in the non-social domain. This pattern is not due to unusually cognitive demands of shared care, but rather because psychological processes that were selected to facilitate cooperative caretaking activities also immediately improve performance in sociocognitive tasks. A key role may be played by social tolerance and proactive prosociality, which are hypothesized to be favoured by cooperative breeding. We therefore assessed social tolerance and proactive prosociality with a new experimental paradigm, the Group Service experiment, and present data from 8 primate species that vary in the extent of allomaternal care and other Congress of the European Federation for Primatology characteristics. In the second part, we elaborate the consequences that must have ensued when during hominin evolution an already sophisticated great-ape-like cognitive system was supplemented with psychological adaptations that arose with cooperative breeding. In particular, we discuss implications for uniquely human cognitive traits such as cumulative culture, shared intentionality, pedagogy, intentional teaching and even language. Finally, we address alternatives to the cooperative breeding model of human evolution, and suggest how different approaches can be reconciled.
2018
Assigning tasks to workers for a crowdsourcing project is challenging and needs to consider worker capacity, project duration, total cost and some operational constraints. We formulate the problem as a tri-objective optimisation model, which minimises project duration while simultaneously achieving lower total cost and fewer workers under the considering the capacity risk of contractor. A heuristic algorithm is developed to obtain Pareto efficient solutions. we used the fuzzy AHP(analytic hierarchy process) to confirm the priority among the time cost and the number of selected workers in the process of collaborative manufacturing task allocation. Finally, we designed the heuristic algorithm to solve the multi- objectives model and verified the validity superiority of the algorithm through a specific example.
Comparing Affiliative Relationships of Cebus and Sapajus Species: A Social Networking Approach
We sampled three selected zoological gardens in southwestern Nigeria with the aim of documenting the prevalence of helminth parasite infections in their non-human primates and assessing the risk of transmission to humans. We subjected freshly voided faecal samples of the primates to diagnostic tests, namely modified formal ether sedimentation, floatation technique and larvae faecal culture method to facilitate helminth identification. Six helminths were identified in the primates. These were Taenia sp., Strongyloides sp . , Heterodera sp . , Trichuris trichuria , Ancylostoma duodenale and Ascaris sp . We observed the highest prevalence (40%) in the primates at Oyo Themes Parks and Gardens Zoo, followed by 16.6% in the primates at the University of Ibadan Zoo, while 0% was recorded in primates at the Obafemi Awolowo University Zoo. We recorded a high prevalence in the wet season and a low one in the dry season. We also observed that the zoo setting and the number of animals housed influenced the prevalence of helminth infections in the primates.