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LABORATORY PRIMATE NEWSLETTER Vol. 42, No. 4 Octobery 2003 JUDITH E. SCHRIER, EDITOR JAMES S. HARPER, GORDON J. HANKINSON AND LARRY HULSEBOS, ASSOCIATE EDITORS MORRIS L. POVAR, CONSULTING EDITOR ELVA MATHIESEN, ASSISTANT EDITOR ALLAN M. SCHRIER, FOUNDING EDITOR, 1962-1987 Published Quarterly by the Schrier Research Laboratory Psychology Department, Brown University Providence, Rhode Island ISSN 0023-6861 POLICY STATEMENT The Laboratory Primate Newsletter provides a central source of information about nonhuman primates and re- lated matters to scientists who use these animals in their research and those whose work supports such research. The Newsletter (1) provides information on care and breeding of nonhuman primates for laboratory research, (2) dis- seminates general information and news about the world of primate research (such as announcements of meetings, research projects, sources of information, nomenclature changes), (3) helps meet the special research needs of indi- vidual investigators by publishing requests for research material or for information related to specific research prob- lems, and (4) serves the cause of conservation of nonhuman primates by publishing information on that topic. As a rule, research articles or summaries accepted for the Newsletter have some practical implications or provide general information likely to be of interest to investigators in a variety of areas of primate research. However, special consid- eration will be given to articles containing data on primates not conveniently publishable elsewhere. General descrip- tions of current research projects on primates will also be welcome. The Newsletter appears quarterly and is intended primarily for persons doing research with nonhuman primates. Back issues may be purchased for $5.00 each. Subscribers outside the United States are asked to pay US$20.00 per year mailing charges. (Please make checks payable to Brown University.) Readers with access to electronic mail may receive the nongraphic contents of each issue by sending the message subscribe LPN-L your-own-name to [email protected] Current and back issues of the Newsletter are available on the World Wide Web at <http://www.brown.edu/primate>. Since these free sources are available, we are asking readers who can use them, but who prefer to get the paper issues, to send us an annual donation of at least $10 to help with printing and paper costs. Subscribers outside the U.S., that’s in addition to mailing charges, please. The publication lag is typically no longer than the three months between issues and can be as short as a few weeks. The deadline for inclusion of a note or article in any given issue of the Newsletter has in practice been some- what flexible, but is technically the tenth of December, March, June, or September, depending on which issue is scheduled to appear next. Reprints will not be supplied under any circumstances, but authors may reproduce their own articles in any quantity. PREPARATION OF ARTICLES FOR THE NEWSLETTER. – Articles, notes, and announcements may be submitted by mail, e-mail, or computer disk, but a printed copy of manuscripts of any length or complexity should also be sent by regular mail. Articles in the References section should be referred to in the text by author(s) and date of publication, e.g., Smith (1960) or (Smith & Jones, 1962). Names of journals should be spelled out completely in the References section. Technical names of monkeys should be indicated at least once in each note and article. In general, to avoid inconsistencies within the Newsletter, the scientific names used will be those in Mammal Species of The World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, 2nd Ed. D. E. Wilson & D. M. Reeder (Eds.). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. For an introduction to and review of primate nomenclature see the chapter by Maryeva Terry in A. M. Schrier (Ed.), Behavioral Primatology: Advances in Research and Theory (Vol. 1). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977. All correspondence concerning the Newsletter should be addressed to: Judith E. Schrier, Psychology Department, Box 1853, Brown University Providence, Rhode Island 02912 [401-863-2511; FAX: 401-863-1300] e-mail address: [email protected] Current and back issues of the Newsletter are available on the World Wide Web at http://www.brown.edu/primate ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Newsletter is supported by U. S. Public Health Service Grant RR-00419 from the Comparative Medicine Program, National Center for Research Resources, N.I.H. Cover illustration of an infant rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta), by Penny Lapham Copyright © 2003 by Brown University Diet of Macaca fascicularis in a Mangrove Forest, Vietnam Vo Dinh Son Saigon Zoo Introduction (Newton-Fisher, 1999). If I lost contact with the focal subject, I located another of the same age/sex class until I Studies of the diet and feeding behavior of wild ani- was able to reestablish contact with the first one. mals are necessary to understand species’ ecological ad- aptation to their environment and may also contribute to Each day the group and the age/sex class of the sub- understanding their ecology and behavioral problems. ject were changed; observations were equally distributed among the classes. The foods of animals can be studied in several ways. The most obvious way is to watch and record what they The data presented here were collected over 22 are eating. Another way is to examine the stomach con- months from January, 2000, to October, 2001. The con- tents of dead animals; or feces can be collected and exam- tact time with 105 individuals belonging to the three ined for plant and insect fragments, seeds, and other evi- groups was 105 days; a total of 1260 hours. dence of food eaten (National Research Council, 1981). The time spent feeding on each food was calculated In most studies of primates’ diet, observational data have using the following method: Feeding was calculated by been used to calculate the proportion of time used to con- summing the total number of observations for each food sume different foods. species or plant part and expressing it as a percentage of Studies of the diet of crab-eating macaques (Macaca the total number of feeding observations. These propor- fascicularis) were carried out by, for example, Wheatley tions are estimates of the proportions of time the animal (1989); Lucas and Corlett (1991); and Yeager (1996). spent feeding on each food species. Fooden (1995) reviewed the diets of M. fascicularis living Daily percentage of time spent feeding on each food in Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia and concluded was calculated by dividing the total time spent eating each that at least 185 species of fruits are the main food of food by the total feeding time that day. For monthly per- these macaques. centage of time feeding on each food I averaged the time The objective of this study is to describe the diet of spent feeding on each food over the days of each month. crab-eating macaques living in Can Gio Mangrove Forest, Identification of mangrove macrobenthos (organisms, southern Vietnam, and the role of provisioning by the e.g., insect larvae, living in or on aquatic substrates and Park staff and tourists. For more information about the large enough to be seen with the naked eye) was con- study area and macaques, see Son (2002; 2003). ducted by Dr. Do Van Nhuong of the Faculty of Agro- Methods Biology, Hanoi University of Education. The Rhizophora stem borer (Zeuzera sp.) was identified by Dr. Nguyen I observed three groups (Lam Vien, Khe Doi, and Khe Thi Thu Cuc of the Department of Entomology, Can Tho Dinh) of crab-eating macaques in Can Gio Mangrove University. Forest Park. Group size varied from 26 to 170 members. Nutritional analysis of food items (Table 4) was con- I used an observational method approximating that ducted at the Dept of Animal Nutrition, University of used in several previous studies (Nakagawa, 1997; Hill, Agriculture and Forestry, Ho Chi Minh City. 1997; Rose, 2000). Behavioral data were collected using focal animal sampling (Altmann, 1974). One monkey Results was followed for 12 hours each day, from 0600 h to 1800 During the study period, the crab-eating macaques h. Observations were recorded at 30-second intervals. used at least 14 plant species and 14 animal species, as The number of observations during which an animal fed well as some grasses and fungi (Table 1). on a food item is referred to as “time fed” on that food. Diet therefore is measured in terms of time spent feeding The macaques spent most time eating parts of man- grove trees, such as Rhizophora spp. (red mangrove), Avicennia spp. (black mangrove), and Ceriops spp. (yel- Author’s address: Saigon Zoo, 2 Nguyen Binh Khiem Str. low mangrove), which account for 33% of total feeding Q.1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam [084 9100885; fax: 084 time. They spent a high percentage of time feeding on 8228309; e-mail: [email protected]]. animals: Brachyura (crab suborder) species (11.17%), The author is grateful to Dr. Shuichi Matsumura, Primate Bankia saulii (shipworm) (6.72%), and Zeuzera (wood- Research Institute, Kyoto University, for his comment on an boring caterpillar) spp: (6.77%; see Figure 1). The pro- earlier version of the manuscript. Thanks also go to staff mem- bers of Can Gio Mangrove Park for their help with the field portion of food from human sources is 25%: 20.9% from study. Can Gio Mangrove Park staff; 4.1% from tourists. 1 Rhizophora spp. Avicennia spp. Leaves 7.73 ± 8.53 4.03 ± 5.21 Buds 0.96 ± 3.02 0.18 ± 1.19 Flowers 1.44 ± 3.08 0.15 ± 0.78 Fruits 9.93 ± 7.87 0.76 ± 3.02 Roots 2.84 ± 3.73 0.12 ± 0.7 Bark 0.48 ± 1.5 0.15 ± 0.66 Total 23.38 ± 14.57 5.38 ± 6.83 Table 2: Percentage of time spent feeding on mangrove parts.
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