The Diets, Preferences, and Overlap of the Primate Community in the Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda

Conclusions

The forest management in Budongo over the past 60 years has reduced the dominance of C. alexandri and encouraged a more diverse and mixed forest. This has led to a greater density of trees bearing fleshy fruits, particularly C. durandii, which forms an important component of the diet for all the primates. Food availability is probably not the only factor determining primate densities in this forest though, as there is little indication that there is competition for food. It is possible that at the low density sites, food is a determining factor but that at high density sites social factors between primate groups may determine densities rather than food supply. Much of the change in the forest can be attributed to the arboricide treatment rather than the logging because it was not the logging that reduced the monodominance in the forest. In Uganda there has been little hunting of primates for meat because most Ugandans will not eat primate meat. More recently, with movements of people between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, there are now some people who will hunt primates for meat; however, the level of hunting is still very low in comparison with Central Africa. Care must therefore be taken when extrapolating from these results to other logging sites in Africa. In Central and West Africa, the building of roads by logging companies opens up the forest and encourages hunters to penetrate deeper into the forest. Hunting, rather than the logging practices themselves, exacts a major toll on the wildlife, including primates, in these regions.