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Behavioral data collection on blond capuchins in an Atlantic Forest fragment, Brazil
Blond capuchin is a south American monkey’s specie classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN 2020). Human pressures, climate change, and habitat degradation have led to the shrinking of their resources, causing them to rely on sugarcane as a fallback food. This change in their diet has resulted in plastic behavior associated with their foraging and manipulative skills. The population of interest consists of 133 individuals living in a 270-ha fragment of the Atlantic Forest in Caaporã, Brazil. This fragment has been surrounded by a sugarcane matrix for at least the past 25 years, but it was suddenly removed in 2024. Although the sugarcane fields have been largely removed, some remnants remain accessible by crossing roads. To investigate how the use of FBF influences manipulative behaviors and optimal foraging sequences among blond capuchins in an Atlantic Forest fragment, field research was conducted between June and August 2024. An initial draft of an ethogram was created and subsequently refined during the summer; for example, behaviors like "twisting" were added after being observed in the wild. The first version of the ethogram was implemented in Animal Behaviour Pro, and recorders and video cameras were finally chosen to ensure no observations were missed. The collected data are intended for analysis in BORIS. Although the data have not been fully exploited yet, preliminary results indicate a high reliance on sugarcane fields, a modification in foraging strategies, and increased exposure to fragment borders, intensifying interactions between humans and non-human primates.
