Abstract
The processes of habitat loss and fragmentation are probably the most important threats to biodiversity. It is critical that we understand the conservation value of fragments, because they may represent opportunities to make important conservation gains, particularly for species whose ranges are not in a protected area. However, our ability to understand the value of fragments for primates is limited by the fact that researchers have conducted many studies in protected areas, which do not represent most fragments, and studies are typically short term. Here we determine the long-term survival probability of red (Procolobus pennantii) and black-and-white colobus (Colobus guereza) inhabiting forest fragments outside of Kibale National Park, Uganda. Local communities use the fragments primarily for subsistence agriculture and fuelwood. We surveyed primate populations 3 times over 8 yr, made a total inventory of all trees 2 times, contrasted behavior of groups inhabiting 1 fragment with groups in the continuous forest, and judged the conservation value of the fragments by quantifying patterns of forest use by local people. Of the 20 fragments surveyed, 16 supported resident populations of colobus in 1995, 2 were cleared in 2000, and an additional 2 fragments were cleared by 2003. In 1995 we counted 165 black-and-white colobus, whereas in 2000 and 2003, we counted 119 and 75 individuals, respectively. Seven fragments supported red colobus in 1995, 11 in 2000, and 9 in 2003. In 2000 we counted 159 red colobus, while in 2003, we saw 145 individuals. For both species, activity patterns in continuous forest were similar to those in a fragment, with the exception that individuals in the fragment rested more. Colobus in the fragment ate more mature leaves than colobus in the continuous forest did. Fragments supported all the fuelwood needs of an average of 32 people who lived immediately adjacent to them, and partially supported families up to 3 farms away (ca. 400 m), representing 576 people. Intensive harvesting for fuelwood occurred when neighboring households engaged in beer brewing (an average of 9.6% of the households), gin distilling (8.8%), or charcoal production (14.5%). Overall, between 2000 and 2003, the average density of trees declined by 14 trees/ha (range = 0–60 trees/ha). If current rates of clearing continue, the probability that the fragments will continue to support colobus populations is low.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bradley, P. N. (1991). Women, woodfuel and woodlots. London: Macmillan.
Chapman, C. A. (1987). Flexibility in diets of three species of Costa Rican Primates. Folia Primatologica, 49, 90–105.
Chapman, C. A., Balcomb, S. R., Gillespie, T. R., Skorupa, J., & Struhsaker, T. T. (2000). Long-term effects of logging on African primate communities: A 28 year comparison from Kibale National Park, Uganda. Conservation Biology, 14, 207–217.
Chapman, C. A., & Chapman, L. J. (2002). Foraging challenges of red colobus monkeys: Influence of nutrients and secondary compounds. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, 133, 861–875.
Chapman, L. J., Chapman, C. A., Crisman, T. L., & Nordlie, F. G. (1998). Dissolved oxygen and thermal regimes of a Ugandan crater lake. Hydrobiology, 385, 201–221.
Chapman, C. A., Chapman, L. J., & Gillespie, T. R. (2002). Scale issues in the study of primate foraging: Red colobus of Kibale National Park. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 117, 349–363.
Chapman, C. A., Chapman, L. J., Wrangham, R., Isabirye-Basuta, G., & Ben-David, K. (1997). Spatial and temporal variability in the structure of a tropical forest. African Journal of Ecology, 35, 287–302.
Chapman, C. A., Gillespie, T. R., & Speirs, M. L. (2005). Dynamics of gastrointestinal parasites in two colobus monkeys following a dramatic increase in host density: Contrasting density-depended effects. American Journal of Primatology, 67, 259–266.
Chapman, C. A., & Lambert, J. E. (2000). Habitat alterations and the conservation of African primates: A case study of Kibale National Park, Uganda. American Journal of Primatology, 50, 169–186.
Chapman, C. A., & Onderdonk, D. A. (1998). Forests without primates: Primate/plant codependency. American Journal of Primatology, 45, 127–141.
Chapman, C. A., & Peres, C. (2001). Primate conservation in the new millennium: The role of scientists. Evolutionary Anthropology, 10, 16–33.
Coley, P. D. (1983). Herbivory and defensive characteristics of tree species in a lowland tropical forest. Ecological Monographs, 53, 209–233.
Debinski, D. M., & Holt, R. D. (2001). A survey and overview of habitat fragmentation experiments. Conservation Biology, 14, 342–355.
Estrada, A., & Coates-Estrada, R. (1996). Tropical rainforest fragmentation and wild populations of primates at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. International Journal of Primatology, 17, 759–783.
Fairgrieve, C. (1995). The Comparative Ecology of Blue Monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis stuhlmanni) in logged and unlogged forest, Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda: The effects of logging on habitat and population density. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Ganzhorn, J. U. (1995). Low-level forest disturbance effects on primary production, leaf chemistry, and lemur populations. Ecology, 76, 2048–2096.
Gilbert, K. A. (2003). Primates and fragmentation of the Amazon forest. In L. K. Marsh (ed.), Primates in fragments: Ecology and conservation (pp. 145–157). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Gillespie, T. R., & Chapman, C. A. (2001). Determinants of group size in the red colobus monkey (Procolobus badius): An evaluation of the generality of the ecological constraints model. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 50, 329–338.
Government of Uganda (1992). 1991 National housing and rural settlement census. Kampala, Uganda.
Hamilton, A. C. (1974). Distribution patterns of forest trees in Uganda and their historical significance. Vegetatio, 29, 218–228.
Hanski, I., & Gilpin, M. E. (1997). Metapopulation Biology: Ecology, Genetics, and Evolution. San Diego: Academic Press.
Harcourt, A. H., & Parks, S. A. (2003). Threatened primates experience high human densities: Adding an index of threat to the IUCN Red List criteria. Biological Conservation, 109, 137–149.
Holmes, R. T., & Pitelka, F. A. (1968). Food overlap among coexisting sandpipers on northern Alaskan tundra. Systematic Zoology, 17, 305–318.
Howard, P. C. (1991). Nature conservation in uganda’s tropical forest reserves. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.
Kammen, D. (1995). Cookstoves for the developing world. Scientific American, 273, 64–67.
Kapos, V., Wandelli, E., Camargo, J., & Ganade, G. (1997). Edge-related changes in environment and plant responses due to forest fragmentation in central Amazonia. In W. F. Laurance & R. O. Bierregaard (eds.), Tropical forest remnants: Ecology, management and conservation of fragmented communities (pp. 33–44). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Laurance, W. F., & Bierregaard, R. O. (1997). Tropical forest remnants: Ecology, management, and conservation of fragmented communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Laurance, W. F., & Cochrane, M. A. (2001). Synergistic effects in fragmented landscapes. Conservation Biology, 15, 1488–1489.
Laurance, W. F., Lovejoy, T. E., Casconcelos, H. L., Bruna, E. M., Didham, R. K., Stouffer, P. C., et al. (2002). Ecosystem decay of Amazonian forest fragments: A 22 year investigation. Conservation Biology, 16, 605–618.
Lawes, M. J., Mealin, P. E., & Piper, S. E. (2000). Patch occupancy and potential metapopulation dynamics of three forest mammals in fragmented afromontane forest in South Africa. Conservation Biology, 14, 1088–1098.
Lawes, M. J., & Piper, S. E. (1992). Activity patterns in free-ranging samango monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis erythrarchus Peters, 1852) at the southern range limit. Folia Primatologica, 59, 186–202.
Lovejoy, T. E., Bierregaard, R. O., Jr., Rylands, A. B., Malcolm, J. R., Quintela, C. E., Harper, L. J., et al. (1986). Edge and other effects of isolation on Amazon forest fragments. In M.E. Soule (ed.), Conservation biology: The science of scarcity and diversity (pp. 257–285). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
Maisels, F., Gautier-Hion, A., & Gautier, J.-P. (1994). Diets of two sympatric colobines in Zaire: More evidence on seed-eating in forests on poor soils. International Journal of Primatology, 15, 681–701.
Marsh, L. K. (2003). Primates in fragments: Ecology in conservation. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Press.
Naughton-Treves, L. (1997). Farming the forest edge: Vulnerable places and people around Kibale National Park, Uganda. Geographical Review, 87, 27–46.
Naughton-Treves, L. (1998). Predicting patterns of crop damage by wildlife around Kibale National Park, Uganda. Conservation Biology, 12, 156–168.
Naughton-Treves, L. (1999). Whose animals? A history of property rights to wildlife in Toro, western Uganda. Land Degradation and Development, 10, 311–328.
Naughton-Treves, L., & Chapman, C. A. (2002). Fuelwood resources and forest regeneration on fallow land in Uganda. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 14, 19–32.
NEMA National Environment Management Authority (1997). Kabarole District Environment Profile. Kampala, Uganda: NEMA.
Oates, J. F. (1977). The guereza and its food. In T. H. Clutton-Brock (ed.), Primate Ecology (pp. 275–321). New York: Academic Press.
Oates, J. F. (1996). Habitat alteration, hunting, and the conservation of folivorous primates in African forests. Australian Journal of Ecology, 21, 1–9.
Onderdonk, D. A., & Chapman, C. A. (2000). Coping with forest fragmentation: The primates of Kibale National Park, Uganda. International Journal of Primatology, 21, 587–611.
Osmaston, H. A. (1959). Working Plan for the Kibale and Itwara Forests (pp. 60). Entebbe: Uganda Forest Department.
Paterson, J. D. (1991). The ecology and history of Uganda’s Budongo Forest. Forest and Conservation History, 35, 179–187.
Steinhart, E. I. (1971). Transition in western Uganda: 1891–1901. Ph.D. Dissertation. History. Northwestern University, Chicago.
Struhsaker, T. T. (1975). The red Colobus monkey (pp. 311). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Struhsaker, T. T. (1976). A further decline in numbers of Amboseli vervet monkeys. Biotropica, 8, 211–214.
Struhsaker, T. T. (1997). Ecology of an African rain forest: Logging in kibale and the conflict between conservation and exploitation (pp. 434). Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Struhsaker, T. T., & Leland, L. (1987). Colobines: infanticide by adult males. In B. B. Smuts, D. L. Cheney, R. M. Seyfarth, R. W. Wrangham, & T. T. Struhsaker (eds.), Primate societies (pp. 83–97). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Struhsaker, T. T., Marshal, A. R., Ketwiler, K., Siex, K., Ehardt, C., Lisbjerg, D. D., et al. (2004). Demographic variation among Udzungwa red colobus in relation to gross ecological and sociological parameters. International Journal of Primatology, 25, 615–658.
Struhsaker, T. T., & Oates, J. F. (1975). Comparison of the behavior and ecology of red colobus and black-and-white colobus monkeys in Uganda: A summary. In R. H. Tuttle (ed.), Socioecology and psychology of primates (pp. 103–124). The Hague: Mouton.
Taylor, B. K. (1962). The Western Lacustrine Bantu. London: Sidney Press.
Tutin, C. E. G. (1999). Fragmented living: Behavioural ecology of primates in a forest fragment in the Lopé Reserve, Gabon. Primates, 40, 249–265.
Tutin, C. E. G., White, L. J. T., & Mackanga-Missandzou, A. (1997). The use of rainforest mammals of natural forest fragments in an equatorial African savanna. Conservation Biology, 11, 1190–1203.
Wallmo, K., & Jacobson, S. K. (1998). A social and environmental evaluation of fuel-efficient cook-stoves and conservation in Uganda. Environmental Conservation, 25, 99–108.
Acknowledgments
The Wildlife Conservation Society, National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC, Canada), and the National Science Foundation (NSF, Grant SBR-9617664, SBR-990899) provided funding for the research. The Office of the President, Uganda, the National Council for Science and Technology, and the Uganda Wildlife Authority gave permission to conduct the research. Lauren Chapman and Tom Struhsaker provided helpful comments on the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chapman, C.A., Naughton-Treves, L., Lawes, M.J. et al. Population Declines of Colobus in Western Uganda and Conservation Value of Forest Fragments. Int J Primatol 28, 513–528 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-007-9142-8
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-007-9142-8