Climatic conditions can significantly affect the behaviour of animals and constrain their activity or geographic distribution. The Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) is one of the few primates that live outside the tropics. Here we analyse if and how the activity budgets of the Barbary macaque are affected by climatic variables (i.e. air temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, and snow coverage). We collected scan sampling data, over a period of almost three years, on the activity budgets of four groups of macaques living in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco. This habitat is characterized by extreme seasonal changes, from cold and snowy winters, to hot and dry summers. The activity budgets of the macaques differed across months but not across the time of day (with the exception of time spent feeding). The monkeys spent significantly more time feeding or foraging when there was no snow than when snow coverage was moderate or major.Daily rainfall was positively related to resting time and negatively to time spent moving or in social behaviour. Air temperature was negatively related to time spent feeding or foraging. Finally, time spent on social behaviour was significantly lower when relative humidity was high. These data indicate that environmental factors significantly affect the time budgets of the endangered Barbary macaque, a species that has been little studied in the wild. Our study is one of the first accounts of how a temperate primate responds to climatic variables.
Habitat, diet and leaf chemistry are compared between Japanese and Barbary macaques to reveal the similarities and differences in dietary adaptations of temperate primates living at the eastern and western extremes of the genus Macaca. Tree species diversity and proportion of fleshy-fruited species are much higher in Japan than in North Africa. Both species spend considerable annual feeding time on leaves. Japanese macaques prefer fruits and seeds over leaves, and Barbary macaques prefer seeds. These characteristics are adaptive in temperate regions where fruit availability varies considerably with season, since animals can survive during the lean period by relying on leaf and other vegetative foods. The two species are different with respect to the higher consumption of herbs by Barbary macaques, and the leaves consumed contain high condensed and hydrolysable tannin for Barbary but not for Japanese macaques. Barbary macaques supplement less diverse tree foods with herbs. Because of the low species diversity and high tannin content of the dominant tree species, Barbary macaques may have developed the capacity to cope with tannin. This supports the idea that digestion of leaves is indispensable to survive in temperate regions where fruit and seed foods are not available for a prolonged period during each year.
Overexploitation of forests by humans can lead to highly fragmented populations of forest-dependent species that have poor dispersal abilities. We tested the influence of habitat quality, landscape structure and human pressure on densities of the Barbary macaque Macaca sylvanus in the largest wild population, in the Middle Atlas of Morocco.We surveyed 14 forest fragments of 5-142 km 2 that are separated from each other by an inhospitable matrix. We estimated the habitat quality of these forest patches by analysing the vegetation structure and the intensity of human pressure. We studied the distribution of forest patches and estimated macaque densities by combining line transect sampling and complete group counts. We estimated mean density of individuals to be 9 km -2 (range 0.2-23 km -2 ). Differentiation of forest patches by a Principal Component Analysis did not show any significant relationship between vegetation type and macaque density. A linear regression model showed that human pressure had a negative impact on density and that density responded positively to patch size. Patch shape, connectivity and altitude did not explain variation in population density. The size of this population is estimated to be c.5,000 individuals. The survival of several small subpopulations is seriously threatened. As the Middle Atlas is the stronghold of this Endangered species, we recommend modifying forestry practices, reducing overgrazing by livestock within forests and halting clearcutting of holm oaks.
Barbary macaques, like other non-human primates living in highly seasonal temperate environments, display high monthly variations in their diet. In addition, their diet changes according to the habitat type they colonize and to the degree of habitat degradation due to resource exploitation by local people, in particular through pastoralism. We studied the time-budget adjustments of wild Barbary macaques in three cedar-oak forests impacted by different intensities of grazing pressure from goats and sheep. We examined how diet variations influenced the time monkeys spent in their activities and their day range lengths (i.e. their energy costs). At three studied sites, diet composition and time budgets showed marked seasonal variations. Diet composition had a strong influence on monkeys' time budget. In the forest where pastoralism was the highest, diet included a greater proportion of underground resources, shrub fruit and acorns, which led to an increase in the time spent foraging and moving, as well as an important increase in day range lengths. Energy costs were therefore higher in a degraded environment than in a suitable habitat. The monkeys living in forests subjected to pastoralism took advantage of increased day lengths to spend more time searching for food. However, in the forest with the highest pastoralism pressure, although monkeys spent more time foraging, they spent less time feeding than monkeys at the other sites. In addition, they appeared to have reached the limits of the available time they could devote to these activities, as their diurnal resting time was at its lowest level over several months. Temperature variations did not appear to modify monkeys' time budgets. In the least favourable habitat, saving time from resting activity allowed monkeys to maintain a relatively high level of social activity, partly linked to rearing constraints.
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