The purpose of this study was to analyze the interactions of visitors and Formosan macaques (Macaca cyclopis) at the Mt. Longevity. Data on the attitudes of visitors were collected by using questionnaires covering topics such as purpose, frequency and opinions of visitors. Scan samplings, agonistic behavior samplings and focal samplings were used as observational methods to record the agonistic behaviors of monkeys. The study also analyzed patterns of human-monkey interactions that recorded through ad libitum samplings, including visitor participation that influenced agonistic behaviors among the monkeys. Statistical analyses were used to analyze various factors that influenced agonistic frequency and patterns. The agonistic behaviors in dyads during food provision tests were used to establish their rank relationships and dominance styles.
Mt Longevity is a major recreational site in Kaohsiung city; the human pressure on Mt. Longevity was high and the tourist numbers were estimated as 6175 individuals ( ¡Ó 119, n = 10) in holidays and 3490 individuals ( ¡Ó 68, n = 10) in weekdays (between 08:00 to 18:00 hrs). The vegetation cover was apparently reduced above 60% in 16 recreational sites surveyed. The tourist numbers appeared to exceeding the carrying capacity of Mt. Longevity. The frequencies of human-monkey interaction were influenced by the number of monkeys and concentrated during the afternoons; the average frequency was 9.3 times / hr in holiday and 3.3 times / hr in weekday. The average frequency of tourists provisioned for monkeys was 0.59 times / hr ( ¡Ó 17.2, n = 131). An overall ratio of 17.5 : 1 between human-initiated and monkey-initiated interaction behaviors was found. Pass and eye contact accounted for over 67% of these interactions, and adult monkeys participated in human-monkey interaction more than the rest of the age / sex classes. During the conflict between human and macaques, most visitors used sticks or hands / legs to drive adult males away (63.5%). The average daily activities of Formosan macaques were: 37.7% inactive, 24.6% moving, 24.5% affiliation, eating / foraging 9.5% and agonistic behavior 2.6%. Frequencies of monkey aggressive behaviors increased along with increasing individuals of monkeys, and frequencies of their body aggressions and aggressions were higher during provision than without human disturbance.
Open mouth threat was the most frequent aggressive behavior expressed by the monkeys (60.0%), while fleeing (37.0%) and squealing (36.0%) were the most common submissive behaviors. Agonistic initiators were mostly adult females (41.9%) and males (40.4%) and agonistic reactors were mostly juveniles (44.6%) and adult females (32.6%). Monkey contest was only 2.8% - 3.9% of total aggressive behaviors and the study revealed that the dominance style of Formosan macaques was despotic social system. The frequency of aggressive behavior of adult males (1.3 ¡Ó 2.1 times / 20min, n = 14) was 2.6 times in average to that of adult females (0.5 ¡Ó 0.9 times / 20min, n = 17). It varied significantly among different adult males and it was higher in mating seasons than the non-mating seasons (p<0.05). However, the frequencies of aggressive behavior of adult females were similar between seasons and among ranks (low, middle and high) but the frequency of submissive behaviors was higher in low rank adult females than that of high rank ones (p<0.05). Adult male and female Formosan macaques had a similar dominance style (aggression, avoidance, ignoring, undecided, AAD pattern and NNI pattern) in food tests; adult males showed more frequent aggression toward adult males than to adult females and juveniles. The individuals who showed open mouth threat had a success rate of getting food for over 50%.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0602104-150814 |
| Date | 02 June 2004 |
| Creators | Kao, Chien-ching |
| Contributors | none, Hsu, Minna J., G. Agoramoorthy |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0602104-150814 |
| Rights | restricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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