| Half of all wild non-human primate species are threatened due to habitat degradation and habitat loss etc., and how to effectively protect and manage them is catching more and more attentions. Rhesus monkey(Macaca mulatta) is the most widely distributed non-human primates, naturally inhabiting from sub-tropical zone to temperate zone, but mainly in China and its vicinity countries and regions. Taihangshan macaque (M. m. tcheliensis) is currently only distributed in sourthern region of Mt. Taihangshan and Mt. Zhongtiaoshan (N 34°54'-35°16', E 112°02'-112°52'), situating at the boundary of Henan and Shanxi provinces, and is the most northerly-dwelling population of wild rhesus macaques. To understand the population ecology and social biology of wild Taihangshan macaques, during February 2009 to July 2010, I followed one wild troop of Taihangshan macaque (Wangwu 1 Troop, WW-1) and the main researches are as following:1) Population ecology of Taihangshan macaquesBy visiting ranger, checking records, and wild surveying, I collected the population dynamics and reproductive parameters of the WW-1 Troop. It showed:1) group size was 14 in Feb.2009 and 39 in Dec.2009, and the annual growth rate was 15.9%; 2) 11 of 12 adult females gave birth to 39 infants (the other one just became adult but she did not give any birth before the end of this research), and the birthrate was 0.808±0.145 (M±SD) births per adult female per year, while infant mortality was 22.4%; 3) age at first birth for females was 4.68 years old, and the mean interbirth interval was 13.9±4.1 months (M±SD); 4) births were concentrated from March to June of each year, and the mean birth date was 22 April (median:26 April). The results indicated that the population growth of the target troop was exciting, and the females had strong fecundity, but how to reduce the infant mortality was critical to the conservation and management of wild Taihangshan macaques.The average birth sex ratio did not show any bias (♀:♂=1:1.04, n=31,p=0.281), but the proportion of female infants was gradually increasing with the decrease of annual precipitation, which showed that there was a slightly negative correlation between annual precipitation and birth sex ratio (r=-0.769, p=0.074). It suggested the climate change influenced the non-human primates'reproduction, but how the precipitation affected the birth sex ratio at birth needed further study.2) PAE Ethogram of Taihangshan macaqueBy using focal animal sampling method, I recorded the processes, contents, and surrounding habitat of behaviors of wild Taihangshan macaques. I collected behavioral data and coded them following the "posture-act-environment" (PAE) coding system which concerns posture, act, environment, and ecological function of behaviors. The results showed that:1) a total of 14 postures,93 acts and 121 behaviors of Taihangshan macaques were recorded and identified; 2) based on ecological function of behaviors, all the recorded behaviors were categorized into 13 groups that including ingestive, eliminate, thermo-regulatory, paring, mating, parental, agonistic, affinitive, aggregation, communication, resting, locomotive, and miscellaneous behaviors; and 3) PAE ethogram of free-ranging Taihangshan macaques was successfully established following the PAE coding system.3) Social structure and moving order of WW-1 TroopFrom Febrary 2009 to July 2010, I identified the individuals of a wild Taihangshan macaque troop (Wangwu 1 troop, WW-1) and investigated its social structure in Mt. Taihangshan area, Jiyuan, China. I collected data of agonistic behaviors among adult individuals and matrilineal units by Ad libitum sampling method, and then established the dominance hierarchies of WW-1 based on David's Score method. Besides, I also collected the moving order data of adult individuals by Instantaneous and scan sampling and analyzed the correlation between them. The results showed that:1) WW-1, whose group size was 41 until July 2010, were consisting of 7 adult males,13 adult females and 21 immatures, and all the adult females respectively belong to 3 matrilineal units, including Honglian Unit (HL Unit), Changmao (CM Unit) and Bandian Unit (BD Unit) and the adult sex ratio (♀:♂) was 1.43 in WW-1; 2) adult male:adult female:subadult male:subadult female:juvenile male:juvenile female:infant male:infant female was 1:1.86:0.29: 0.43:0.86:1.29:0.14:0, and the percentage of the immatures accounted for 56.4% of the total troop members; and 3) it displayed a linear dominance hierarchies among adult individuals and matrilineal units in WW-1, the dominance rank of adults individuals was HB>CH>BB>PZ>HL>JL>XBL>ZM>GB>CM>HJ> XBD>BD>BY>HT, and HL Unit>CM Unit>BD Unit for matrilineal units. We concluded that Taihangshan macaques exhibited multi-males and multi-females social structure pattern, and the dominance hierarchy of adult males was steeper than that of the adult females, while the ranks of adult females were determined by the ranks of theire matrilineal units. Besides, the a-ranked individual in WW-1 was HB, adult male, who had the priority in accessing to available resources. |
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