Abstract
Between-group encounters are an obvious outcome of intergroup competition. Between-group encounters in primates range from avoidance to fatally aggressive. The prevailing hypotheses explain such encounters as mate defense strategy by males and resource defense strategy by females. However, the rate and nature of between-group encounters may also be influenced by habitat and demographic characteristics. We studied the effect of forest fragment size on group encounters in lion-tailed macaques in the Western Ghats of southern India. The encounter rate decreased as the fragment size increased. Group density and home range overlap correlated positively with the encounter rate. The aggressive encounters were more in the relatively medium-sized fragment where the observed frequency of between-group encounters was higher than the expected frequency than in the small fragment and the large forest complex. Together, these results indicate a complex pattern of effects of fragment size on between-group encounters in primates.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Joseph J Erinjery for assistance in data analysis. We also thank the reviewers whose helpful comments have helped enhance the quality of this article. M.S. thanks the Science and Engineering Research Board, Government of India, for the award of a Ramanna Fellowship during which this article was prepared.
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Kumara, H.N., Singh, M., Sharma, A.K. et al. Impact of forest fragment size on between-group encounters in lion-tailed macaques. Primates 55, 543–548 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-014-0437-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-014-0437-z