There is a growing need to address the effects of roadway presence on wildlife. Not only do roads directly impact gene dispersal from a movement perspective, but they limit movement of the individual animal from a habitat perspective by presenting an artificial barrier between one area of viable habitat and another. For this reason it is becoming increasingly important to quantify contact between humans and wildlife and to develop better methods for mitigating these types of conflicts. Studying habitat connectivity and animal mobility in the context of roads can provide actionable information on how, where, and when these encounters might occur in order to minimize the effects transportation networks have on wildlife. This study uses two different approaches for studying wildlife-road interactions: (1) quantifying habitat fragmentation caused by roads and (2) directly quantifying wildlife interaction with roadways. This was achieved through the development and extension of methods found in the fields of landscape ecology and time geography. First, this study demonstrates the utility of one newly created road-based landscape metric through a detailed case study via the creation of an original ArcGIS toolbox. Second, this study develops a new time-geographic methodology to probabilistically measure and predict where wildlife interactions are most likely to occur on road networks. Additionally, it is important to ensure these methods not only quantify effects of roads from habitat and movement perspectives but can be used to mitigate these conflicts in real world conservation settings. Each of these approaches individually leverages techniques found in the field of spatial optimization to strategically locate wildlife crossing structures. This study developed two new methodologies to quantify where, when, and how wildlife interactions with roads are most likely to occur: the first using road-based landscape metrics and the second using a probabilistic voxel-based time-geographic approach. To address habitat connectivity issues, one road-based landscape metric was validated on a real world data set and further advanced by developing a GIS-based tool for real world applications. Utilizing landuse and roadway layers in combination with user specified parameters, the script tools developed here readily calculate this road-based landscape metric for a given study area. To address wildlife mobility issues, probabilistic space-time prisms were used to quantify interaction probabilities between wildlife and roads. These prisms were generated for a given set of tracking points and overlaid with an intersecting roads layer in GIS. Summing the probabilities at prism-roadway intersections revealed a pattern in the likelihood of animal-roadway interactions. Finally, each method was expanded to capture habitat fragmentation and animal movement in the presence of roads over large spatial scales using location analysis techniques. This research also develops and implements new methods that explicitly address wildlife-road interactions and aid in siting potential wildlife crossing structures. Since this study directly addresses effects of roadway presence on wildlife, the techniques developed here offer an alternative approach versus existing methods from a habitat and wildlife movement perspective. These methods can aid planners in the conservation of wildlife whose habitat has been impacted by road development by identifying and targeting areas of high impact.

Masters of Art / The rapid increase in urbanisation and tourism in the Cape Peninsula has increased the rate of human-wildlife interaction. The Cape Peninsula is unique in terms of placing urban areas next to protected natural areas with no physical barriers, thus allowing animals, especially baboons, to travel between the two areas, occasionally leading to conflict between humans and wildlife. Visitors to popular tourist sites may also actively participate in feeding baboons or through negligence by leaving food items in the open. As a result, changing the habits of the baboons as human food and food waste are seen as the preferred option in terms of dietary habits. The main aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions and social construction of visitors in the Cape Peninsula towards baboons at tourist sites. Social constructionist theory was used as the theoretical framework for the study, which looks at the way people perceive nature and wildlife, which is unique to each person. The study uses an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, with a qualitative section that includes three semi-structured interviews, followed by a quantitative section consisting of a questionnaire survey, with 201 questionnaires being completed. The survey was conducted at key tourist sites around the Cape Peninsula that are well known for baboon sightings, including Bordjiesrif Picnic Site, Buffels Bay viewpoint, Cape of Good Hope/Cape Point and Dias Beach. The study used discourse analyses and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyse the data, which allowed for ideas to be labelled and linked to opinions in the literature, and patterns identified during the data collection. Visitors viewed tourism spaces as anthropocentric areas, and thus perceived baboon-visitor interactions through conditional acceptance. Visitor perceptions and social construction of baboon-visitor interactions may be positive when conditional acceptance is adhered to, and negative when conditional acceptance is broken. Recommendations for further research includes more research on non-consumptive tourism activities and its impact on human-wildlife interactions, with a need for more literature on the influence of education on people’s attitudes towards wildlife, and finally, more research that focuses on the changing behavioural ecology of baboons, due to an increase in tourism/visitation.

Submitted by PPG Zoologia (zoologia-pg@pucrs.br) on 2018-08-09T17:51:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o_Back JP_ BIBLIOTECA.pdf: 2736712 bytes, checksum: 8f93cc30646dcf08fd4928d544049a22 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Sheila Dias (sheila.dias@pucrs.br) on 2018-08-13T11:58:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o_Back JP_ BIBLIOTECA.pdf: 2736712 bytes, checksum: 8f93cc30646dcf08fd4928d544049a22 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T12:23:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o_Back JP_ BIBLIOTECA.pdf: 2736712 bytes, checksum: 8f93cc30646dcf08fd4928d544049a22 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-23 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / Research on the influence of food supplementation on primate behavior has focused on terrestrial and semiterrestrial species. Its effects on highly arboreal primates are poorly known. We assessed whether and how food supplementation affects the feeding behavior and activity budget of two howler monkey groups (JA and RO) inhabiting periurban forest fragments in southern Brazil. The behavior of the three adult members of each group were observed via focal-animal method for six to eight full days (dawn to dusk) per month from March to August 2017 (916 h of observation). The feeding events of the focal-individual of the day were recorded using the ?all occurrences? method. The activity budget of the adults of both groups, considering a full day (24 h), was dominated by resting (84%-89%), followed by feeding (9%-5%), moving (6%-4%) and social behavior (both 1%). The supplementation was unevenly distributed during the day and accounted for 6% of all feeding events in both groups. JA always received fruit in a platform, whereas RO had access to fruits and processed foods on roofs and directly from humans. The mean (? sd) ingested biomass of wild foods by each adult howler (g/day) was ca. 300% higher than the ingested biomass of supplemented foods (JA: 406 ? 176 vs 116 ? 97; RO: 364 ? 229 vs 113 ? 108). However, the ingestion rate (g/min) of supplemented foods was >300% higher than that of wild foods (JA: 17 ? 20 vs 4 ? 4; RO: 20 ? 29 vs 6 ? 8). The supplementation reduced the ingestion of wild fruits, but not the consumption of leaves. The ingested biomass of supplemented foods was a good predictor of moving time in RO and social interactions in JA. In sum, food supplementation partially changed the selection of wild foods by howlers and increased their frequency of affiliative behaviors. / Estudos sobre a influ?ncia da suplementa??o alimentar no comportamento de primatas t?m enfocado em esp?cies terrestres e semiterrestres. Seus efeitos em primatas altamente arbor?colas s?o pouco conhecidos. Investigamos se e como a utiliza??o de alimentos suplementados afeta o comportamento alimentar e o tempo investido nas atividades di?rias de dois grupos de bugios-ruivos (JA e RO) habitantes de fragmentos florestais periurbanos no sul do Brasil. Os tr?s indiv?duos adultos de cada grupo foram observados pelo m?todo animal-focal durante seis a oito dias completos (amanhecer ao p?r-do-sol) por m?s de mar?o a agosto de 2017 (916 h de observa??o). Os eventos de alimenta??o do indiv?duo-focal foram registrados pelo m?todo de ?todas as ocorr?ncias?. O or?amento de atividades dos bugios, considerando um dia completo (24 h), foi dominado pelo descanso (84%-89%), seguido pela alimenta??o (9%-5%), locomo??o (6%-4%) e comportamentos sociais (ambos 1%). A suplementa??o n?o foi oferecida uniformemente ao longo do dia e representou 6% dos eventos de alimenta??o de ambos os grupos. JA foi sempre suplementado em uma plataforma com frutos, enquanto RO recebeu frutos e alimentos processados sobre telhados e diretamente pelos humanos. A biomassa m?dia (? dp) de alimento silvestre ingerida por cada adulto (g/dia) foi ca. 300% maior do que a biomassa ingerida de alimentos suplementados (JA: 406 ? 176 vs 116 ? 97; RO: 364 ? 229 vs 113 ? 108). Por?m, a taxa de ingest?o (g/min) foi >300% maior para os alimentos suplementados (JA: 17 ? 20 vs 4 ? 4; RO: 20 ? 29 vs 6 ? 8). A suplementa??o alimentar reduziu a ingest?o de frutos silvestres, mas n?o a ingest?o de folhas. A biomassa suplementada ingerida foi uma boa preditora do tempo investido em locomo??o por RO e em intera??o social por JA. Em suma, a suplementa??o alimentar alterou o forrageio dos bugios e aumentou a frequ?ncia de intera??es afiliativas.