Abstract
Constant changes in natural environments impose challenges to wild animal populations, especially those that depend on social life. We gathered data on the activity budget and social interactions of a capuchin monkey (Sapajussp.) group of 17 individuals confined to an urban green area receiving human food supplementation. We observed the capuchins between 7:00 am and 5:00 pm, three days a month, between January 2012 and June 2013 (total of 530 hours of direct observations). We collected 15,208 behavioral records through instantaneous scan sampling and 2,538 events of social interaction in an adapted version of the “all occurrences” method. Activity budget of capuchins was dominated by traveling (42%) and foraging (38%), followed by feeding (10%), social interactions (5%), resting (4%), and others (2%). Except for feeding, the time spent on other activities varied across sex-age classes. Social interactions of capuchins were dominated by affiliative interactions (80%), mainly social play, followed by agonistic (11%) and cooperative (10%) interactions. Sexual interactions were rare (0.4%) and often involved juveniles (45% of the events). Juveniles performed most of the social interactions, followed by the alpha male, and were the main receptors of grooming, food sharing, and agonism. On the other hand, they were the main group involved in allocarrying of infants. Grooming between females and from them to alpha male was infrequent. However, grooming of the alpha male towards the adult females was frequent. We interpreted the deviations in the activity budget and social interactions of the urban capuchins as effects of human food supplementation and restriction on dispersal, illustrating the behavioral ability of capuchin monkeys to adjust their activity in human-altered environments.
Highlights
The growth of human populations and the consequent changes suffered by natural environments have forced populations of nonhuman primates to adapt to the effects of habitat fragmentation
We describe the activity budget and social interactions of these capuchin monkeys, to assess how they modify their behavior in response to such human interference
We obtained a total of 15,208 observation records in 3,180 scans and 2,538 events of social interactions during 530 hours of direct observation distributed in 53 days of sampling effort
Summary
The growth of human populations and the consequent changes suffered by natural environments have forced populations of nonhuman primates (hereafter “primates”) to adapt to the effects of habitat fragmentation. These changes include impacts on matrix permeability, quality and abundance of food resources, demography, sexual partnership, and inter-specific interactions (Sol et al 2013). Primates can increase their behavioral repertoire in response to new stimuli from the environment. High-energy anthropic food accessible for all individuals can reduce foraging time and increase the time spent socializing and resting: Chlorocebus pygerythrus Cuvier, 1821 (Saj et al 1999), M. mulatta
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