Abstract
Ecology and social demography of Udzungwa colobines: a summary of current knowledge
Folia Primatologica, Vol.75(Supplement 1), pp.23-24
Congress of the International Primatological Society (IPS), 20th (Torino, Italy, 12-Aug-2004–16-Aug-2004)
2004
Abstract
The Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania are part of one of the world's most important areas for conservation of biodiversity and contain one of the richest primate communities in East Africa. Studies are now underway to compare ecology and social demography of the two colobines in the range, with particular reference to the influence of habitat quality. Some initial findings are presented here based on counts of social groups and line transect census. Counts of 63 social groups of Udzungwa red colobus, Procolobus gordonorum, were made in 10 different forests. These suggest that group size is influenced by several parameters including tree density, degree of deciduousness and forest size. The largest groups are found in mature, moist, mixed-evergreen and semi-deciduous forests. Smaller groups are found in heavily logged areas, where there was evidence of fission-fusion. Relative abundance of red colobus appears to decline with elevation. Group size also appears to be low at high elevation but this may be a result of logging. The major influence of habitat quality on age-sex composition of P. gordonorum groups was on natality. Less data are available for the black and white colobus, Colobus angolensis, in the Udzungwa Mountains. Their distribution is broader than the red colobus, and social groups are smaller. Relative abundance of black and white colobus appears not to vary with altitude. A small sample from two high altitude sites found group size to be smaller in the more degraded of the two forests (n=10). Conversely, preliminary data suggest that C. angolensis shows little variation in group size and age-sex composition. This is similar to comparisons made for other species of Procolobus and Colobus and supports the hypothesis that Colobus are more resistant to habitat change.
Details
- Title
- Ecology and social demography of Udzungwa colobines: a summary of current knowledge
- Authors
- Andrew R Marshall (Author) - University of York
- Publication details
- Folia Primatologica, Vol.75(Supplement 1), pp.23-24
- Conference details
- Congress of the International Primatological Society (IPS), 20th (Torino, Italy, 12-Aug-2004–16-Aug-2004)
- Publisher
- S. Karger AG
- Date published
- 2004
- ISSN
- 1421-9980; 0015-5713
- Organisation Unit
- Tropical Forests and People Research Centre; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Forest Research Institute
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99513770002621
- Output Type
- Abstract
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