Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Food Availability, Predation Risk and Antipredator Behavior in Blue Monkeys

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Animals must obtain food and avoid predators to survive. However, empirical evidence suggests that food acquisition and predator avoidance are conflicting demands. Behaviors that reduce predation risk may also reduce food intake. Therefore, animals must develop strategies that allow them to balance the need to eat with the need to avoid being eaten. One factor that may largely determine how individuals respond to predation risk is food availability. When food is scarce, individuals may accept greater predation risk and minimize investment in antipredator behaviors if by so doing they are able to increase their food intake. The role of food availability on antipredator behaviors in primates has not been well studied. This project addresses this gap in primate research by investigating the influence of food abundance and distribution on antipredator behaviors in three habituated groups of blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis) in Kakamega Forest, Kenya. By examining how food availability and predation risk interact and influence behavior in blue monkeys, this project will contribute to a better understanding of primate behavioral ecology in several ways. First, determining the extent to which predation risk influences foraging patterns in blue monkeys will lead to a better and more realistic understanding of foraging behavior. Second, data from this project will elucidate how predation risk and food availability interact to determine the amount of competition for food within a group. Third, studying how individual group members balance the competing demands of food acquisition and predator avoidance will provide insights into how the costs and benefits of sociality are distributed among group members, and this in turn will provide insights into the relative importance of predation vs. food competition in group-living primates. With the help of local Kenyan assistants, observational data on antipredator behaviors in adults and juveniles will be collected over a 12- month period. These data will be compared with ecological data on food abundance and distribution to determine whether blue monkeys reduce antipredator behaviors and accept a higher risk of predation in periods of low food availability. Playback experiments, in which vocalizations from crowned hawk eagles, a predator of blue monkeys, are played to a blue monkey group, will be conducted each month to assess the effects of simulated predator presence on foraging and antipredator behavior among group members. This project will provide additional data to an on-going, long-term study of blue monkey behavior at Kakamega Forest. It will have the broader impacts of benefiting the Kakamega Environmental Education Project, a local, grassroots organization, by employing local conservationists and naturalists and providing educational materials to environmental education teachers and students while assisting in the professional development of the co-PI.