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Effect of habitat fragmentation on ranging behavior of white-headed langurs in limestone forests in Southwest China

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Abstract

The critically endangered white-headed langur (Trachypithecus leucocephalus) is confined to fragmented karst forests of southwest Guangxi Province, China. A lack of information on the influence of habitat fragmentation on langur behavior has prevented a comprehensive understanding of their ranging behavior and the development of effective langur conservation strategies. We collected comparative data on time budgets, daily path lengths, home range and diets of four langur groups inhabiting the lightly fragmented Fusui forest (G1, G2) and the more heavily fragmented Chongzuo forest (G3, G4). The aim was to explore the effect of this fragmentation on langur ranging behavior. Our results showed that the Fusui groups spent more time on moving and less time on feeding and playing than the Chongzuo groups. Daily path lengths were 472.4–536.1 m for the Fusui groups and 449.6–480.7 m for the Chongzuo groups, indicating no marked inter-site variation. The Fusui groups occupied much larger home ranges (23.8–33.8 ha) than the Chongzuo groups (14.5–15.8 ha). However, all groups had similar monthly home ranges. Diets significantly differed among langur groups. The Fusui groups consumed more young leaves and had much lower diet diversity compared with the Chongzuo groups. Our findings indicate that habitat fragmentation is one of the crucial determinants of white-headed langur ranging behavior because fragmentation reduces and restricts the home range. Langurs in fragmented habitat adopt an energy conservation strategy characterized by devoting more time to feeding and less time to moving, with a smaller home range and consumption of more plant species. We argue that linking fragmented forests with corridors should be considered a priority in a wider and comprehensive longer term langur population conservation and habitat management strategy.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 31301893, 31360093, 31372145, 11361068), Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (2014GXNSFAA118106, 2015GXNSFDA139013), and Guangxi Key Laboratory of Rare and Endangered Animal Ecology, Guangxi Normal University (14-A-01-04). We are grateful to the Guangxi Forestry Bureau and the Chongzuo White-headed Langur National Nature Reserve for permitting us to conduct research. We thank Weisong Deng, Zhizhang Liang, Shaoquan Huang and Jinlong He for their help in the field and Dr. Manfu Hou for botanical identification. We would like to acknowledge the editor, Dr. Amanda H. Korstjens, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments. We also appreciate the help given by Dr. Goro Hanya (associate editor) and Dr. Yosuke Kurihara (both at Kyoto University, Japan) in the data analysis, and Dr. Ken Kilpin from Massey University, New Zealand for his help in the language editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Rare and Endangered Animal Ecology, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China

    Zhonghao Huang, Peisong Yuan, Henglian Huang, Xiaoping Tang & Qihai Zhou

  2. College of Mathematics and Information Science, Yulin Normal University, Yulin, China

    Weijian Xu

  3. Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Chengming Huang

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  1. Zhonghao Huang
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  2. Peisong Yuan
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  3. Henglian Huang
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  4. Xiaoping Tang
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  6. Chengming Huang
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Correspondence to Chengming Huang or Qihai Zhou.

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Huang, Z., Yuan, P., Huang, H. et al. Effect of habitat fragmentation on ranging behavior of white-headed langurs in limestone forests in Southwest China. Primates 58, 423–434 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-017-0600-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-017-0600-4

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