Studying the behavior of free-ranging Brazilian nonhuman primates

Friday 27 August 14:00 GMT
primates mammals

Neotropical primates are amazing subjects for behavioral studies. They vary in social organization and structure, diet composition, activity budget, locomotion types, habitat use and many other aspects. In this talk, Bicca-Marques will begin by describing the goals and major findings of the research on primate behavior, ecology, cognition and conservation biology that has been developed over 20+ years by the members of the Laboratory of Primatology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, Pampas, Amazon Forest, Cerrado and Caatinga biomes.

Then, Sacramento will describe her field experiment on the social foraging of three free-ranging groups of black-tufted-ear marmosets (Callithrix penicillata) in the Cerrado of the National Park of Brasília in Central Brazil. Specifically, she will discuss the influence of the finder’s share (the proportion of the resource that is consumed by the producer [first individual to arrive] of the feeding patch before the arrival of the latecomer scroungers) on the foraging strategy and feeding success of marmosets. She established one artificial feeding station within the home range of each study group and exposed the marmosets to two experimental conditions: low finder's share (few food-rich patches) and high finder's share (many food-poor patches).

Finally, Lopes will explain her research on the behavioral strategies adopted by a group of Prince Bernhard’s titi monkeys (Plecturocebus bernhardi) to cope with fluctuations in the availability of preferred, seasonal foods. Her study group inhabited a 2.3-ha forest fragment in the state of Rondônia in the Brazilian Amazon. In addition to recording the behavior of titi monkeys from dawn-to-dusk, she monitored the phenology of the tree species to estimate the availability of fruits, flowers and leaves and she used traps to estimate the availability of invertebrates.