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A COMPARISON OF TWO TROUPES OF BUTON MACAQUES IN RELATION TO HABITAT USAGE, RANGE AND BEHAVIOUR

 

AIM 

To determine if there is a significant difference in the daily activity budgets of two different troops of macaques, which are based in two different forests.  

OBJECTIVES 

1)     To produce a time activity budget by noting the individuals sex and age class, behavioral categories, the position in the substrate.

2)     Habitat survey data will be used to map the areas of the grid that the macaques use, to identify a possible preference.

INTRODUCTION 

The monkey that will be studied in this research is the Buton macaque (Macaca ochreata brunnescens). This monkey is endemic to Buton and is a sub-species of Macaca ochreata, which is found on mainland Sulawesi.

One troupe is situated in the Kakenauwe forest grid and the second troupes' home range is in and around the farms of Kaweli. It will be interesting to discover if the troop at Kakenauwe differ in activity budgets compared to the troop at Kaweli. Kakenauwe grid is generally unlogged, while Kaweli is logged to a small extent and has an extensive farm range surrounding the forest grid. 

METHODS 

The research was carried out at two different sites, the Kakenauwe forest grid and the Kaweli forest grid. There are many standard techniques for observing and collecting data on monkeys. For general behavioral research an Instantaneous scan is the most reliable way to collect data for a large group of monkeys. This involves taking a scan every 15 minutes on the hour. The scan was taken from left to right, this helps avoid the possibility of re-recording. The data that were collected in each scan are as follows. 

  1. The time at which the scan took place.
  2. The location of the scan in the grid, given as a grid reference.
  3. The age-sex class of all visible macaques, given as adult female, adult male, sub-adult, juvenile, infant.
  4. The general behaviour activity of each macaque. This was split into a number of categories. Locomotion, Feeding, Foraging, Resting and Grooming which was split into three sub categories, Self grooming and two social grooming, the groomer and the groomed.
  5. The position of the macaques, either on the ground or in the tree was observed and noted. The tree was divided into Upper inner tree, Upper outer tree, Lower inner tree, Lower outer tree and the trunk.

A habitat survey was conducted on the two forest grids. This involved taking a series of 10m2 quadrats at every transect point on each of the grids. In each quadrat a number of measurements were recorded. Every tree with a circumference of greater then 300mm was measured. A vegetation cover estimate was taken. The percentage sky cover was estimated as was the tallest tree in the quadrat. 

FINAL REPORT 

A dissertation entitled A Comparison of two troupe of Buton Macaques (Macaca ochreata brunescens) in relation to habitat usage, range and behaviour will be produced by Ross Burnett, Napier College by June 2003.