Hunting pressures affect the travel speed of yellow-breasted capuchin monkeys

Keywords: Yellow-Breasted Capuchins, Hunting, Travel Speed
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 32

Abstract

As primate habitats are transformed or degraded, their ranges overlap with several human activities. Yellow-breasted capuchin monkeys, Sapajus xanthosternos, are a critically endangered primate species living under pressure from a variety of human activities in the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil. In the Una Biological Reserve, one group of capuchin monkeys’ home range encompasses secondary and mature forest as well as agroforestry. Prior work shows that risk of hunting by humans affects capuchins’ habitat use. Thus, we hypothesize that activities such as hunting that occur the most within the agroforestry affect the capuchins travel speed. The agroforestry offers more nutritious food sources, but also holds a higher risk of hunting for the capuchins. We expect the capuchin travel speed to increase in the agroforestry area where hunting is present in comparison to their travel speed within secondary and mature forests. Using geographic information science (GIS) and two years of capuchin behavioral data collected from dawn to dusk using a GPS handheld device, we examine the effects of the landscape on capuchin navigation. We confirmed that the capuchins’ travel speed increases within the area of agroforestry, and the difference is statistically significant different between the forest types (H (2) = 58.5, P = 0.001). Our findings show capuchin monkeys adjust their travel speed according to the landscape. Their travel speed increases in the area that has the greatest amount of high-quality food, but is also the area that has higher predation risk from hunting.