We studied long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) populations in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, focusing on the effect of human provisioning on their demography and dietary composition. We conducted a field survey at three sites in the city: Gunung Meru, Gunung Padang, and Gunung Panggilun. Mean troop size (range 28-68) and infant ratio (range 0.38-1.00) were greater in Gunung Meru, where the macaques have been highly provisioned, than at the other two study sites (troop size 10-15; infant ratio 0.00-0.33). The macaques at all sites consumed both natural and human foods, but dependence on the latter differed among sites: three-quarters of the diet of macaques in Gunung Meru consisted of human foods, while human foods comprised less than 5% of the macaque diet at the other sites. The ability of macaques to modify the proportion of human food is a behavioral flexibility that facilitates the survival of the long-tailed macaque in urban habitats. Without restrictions on provisioning, the degree of dependence of macaques on human foods and population size could increase, especially in Gunung Meru, and human-macaque conflict could escalate. In order to create an effective management policy for urbanized monkeys, long-term quantitative data on macaque behavior and monitoring of population parameters are required.
We studied the behavioral ecology of provisioned long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, to examine how temporal changes in food provisioning within a day affect macaque activity. We conducted a field survey from October 2015 to January 2016 at two different sites: Gunung Meru (GM) and Gunung Padang (GP), where macaques receive high and low provisioning, respectively. The time budgets of macaques significantly differed between study groups. At GM, macaques spent more time resting, feeding, acting out agonistic behaviors, and less time moving and searching for food, than the macaques at GP. Diurnal activity patterns significantly changed within a day. The short-term change in activity of the macaques was closely related to the number of tourists: they spent a greater time feeding and searching when more tourists came to feed the monkeys, while time for grooming decreased. Our result showed that the ability of the macaques to adjust their activity in response to the number of tourists (that is, provisioning patterns) indicated their behavioral flexibility. Our result may aid the management strategies to reduce human-macaque conflicts, which has become a major problem in Padang.
The research about composition and structure of Collembola community was conducted at TKA company area, west Sumatra. Collembola were collected at oil palm plantation, conservasion forest and forest edge sites (between conservation forest and plantation area) by survey method with systematic random sampling for collembolla in litter and soil. A total of four Collembola species that belonging to 2 orders, 3 families, 4 genera and 57 individuals was collected. The density of Collembola in litter at conservation forest site was higher than density of Collembola at oil palm plantation site meanwhile the density of Collembola in soil at conservation forest site was higher than density of Collembola in the soil at palm plantation site. Relative density of Isotomiella sp. in litter at oil palm plantation site (100%) was higher than relative density of Folsomides sp. at conservation forest site (5,5%) as well as in the soil. The highest diversity index of Collembola was found in litter of conservation forest (1,18). The highest similarity index was found between conservation forest and forest edge (85,71%) meanwhile the lowest similarity index was found between conservation forest and oil palm plantation (40%).
A study on social network based on grooming interactions among males of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) at Gunung Meru, Padang has been conducted from August to October 2015. The dominance relationship determined by submissive interactions among 17 adult males. Submissive interactions were recorded using ad libitum observation and grooming interactions by continuous recording method. The results showed that the dominance hierarchy among males was linear (Matman linearity index: h' = 0.97). Alfa male appeared to have the highest centrality index among all the males. This study indicates that individuals attained higher dominance hierarchy tend to have higher degree of centrality.
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