Abstract
Housing primates in naturalistic groups provides social benefits relative to solitary housing. However, food intake may vary across individuals, possibly resulting in overweight and underweight individuals. Information on relative adiposity (the amount of fat tissue relative to body weight) is needed to monitor overweight and underweight of group‐housed individuals. However, the upper and lower relative adiposity boundaries are currently only known for macaques living solitarily in small cages. We determined the best measure of relative adiposity and explored the boundaries of overweight and underweight to investigate their incidence in group‐housed adult male and female rhesus macaques and long‐tailed macaques living in spacious enclosures at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC), the Netherlands. During yearly health checks different relative adiposity measures were obtained. For long‐tailed macaques, comparable data on founder and wild animals were also available. Weight‐for‐height indices (WHI) with height to the power of 3.0 (WHI3.0) for rhesus macaques and 2.7 (WHI2.7) for long‐tailed macaques were optimally independent of height and were highly correlated with other relative adiposity measures. The boundary for overweight was similar in group‐housed and solitary‐housed macaques. A lower boundary for underweight, based on 2% body fat similar to wild primates, gave a better estimate for underweight in group‐housed macaques. We propose that for captive group‐housed rhesus macaques relative adiposity should range between 42 and 67 (WHI3.0) and for long‐tailed macaques between 39 and 62 (WHI2.7). The majority of group‐housed macaques in this facility have a normal relative adiposity, a considerable proportion (17–23%) is overweight, and a few (0–3%) are underweight.
Highlights
Group housing of captive primates has beneficial social effects, and changes other aspects of their life and environment
We determined the best measure of relative adiposity and explored the boundaries of overweight and underweight to investigate their incidence in group‐housed adult male and female rhesus macaques and long‐tailed macaques living in spacious enclosures at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC), the Netherlands
Current measures of relative adiposity and subsequent boundaries are based on solitary‐ housed macaques living in small cages (e.g., Raman et al, 2005) and these may be different for group‐housed macaques
Summary
Group housing of captive primates has beneficial social effects, and changes other aspects of their life and environment. Raman et al (2005) determined BMI boundaries for male and female rhesus macaques based on fat reserves in relatively old and solitary‐housed animals living in small cages. The lower boundary can be based on the fat percentage of wild primates, for example, 1.9% in baboons and 2.1% in toque macaques (Altmann, Schoeller, Altmann, Muruthi, & Sapolsky, 1993; Dittus, 2013) The latter boundary (ca 2%) may be more appropriate for group‐housed macaques living in relatively large enclosures, as they are more similar to wild than solitary‐housed animals. The goal of the present study was to determine the best measure of relative adiposity and explore the boundaries of overweight and underweight to investigate their incidence in captive group‐housed adult rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and long‐tailed macaques (M. fascicularis) living in spacious enclosures. We used several methods to determine the upper and lower boundaries of relative adiposity and derived the appropriate boundaries for group‐housed macaques
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
