Living at the edge: home range patterns of the Buraiga Chimpanzee Community, Kibale National Park, Uganda

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Ecology and Evolution

Wren I. Edwards¹  Nancy J. Stevens²  Viorel D. Popescu³  Hillary Agaba⁴  Lydia Nakami⁴  Godfrey Balyesiima⁴  Nelson Guma⁴ 

[1] Department of Biological Sciences, Ohio University, Athens, OH, United States;Department of Biomedical Sciences, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, OH, United States;Ohio Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies, Ohio University, Athens, OH, United States;Buraiga Chimpanzee Project, Bigodi, Uganda;Department of Biomedical Sciences, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Athens, OH, United States;Ohio Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies, Ohio University, Athens, OH, United States;Buraiga Chimpanzee Project, Bigodi, Uganda;Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, United States;Department of Ecology Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York City, NY, United States;Uganda Wildlife Authority, Kampala, Uganda;

关键词: spatial ecology;    habitat mosaic;    corridor;    Buraiga;    Kibale National Park;    home range;    kernel density estimate;    Pan troglodytes;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fevo.2023.1267688

 received in 2023-07-26, accepted in 2023-10-16,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Data on space-use patterns are essential for understanding species ecology and conservation. Individual chimpanzee communities are known to vary in home range size and habitat use dynamics, reflecting site-specific strategies to differences in resource availability on different landscapes. Here we present home range estimates for the Buraiga chimpanzees of Kibale National Park, Uganda, a community of eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) living within the largest remaining population fragment in Uganda. The Buraiga chimpanzees are currently undergoing habituation for research and tourism under the direction of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). We analyzed 15 months of GPS data (August 2019 – March 2020, and January – July 2022), calculating overall and seasonal home range and core area estimates with two methods, minimum convex polygon (MCP) and kernel density estimates (KDE). Home range was estimated to cover an area of 15.77 km2 (95% KDE), and 24.90 km2 (100% MCP). Additionally, we found that 15.82% of the Buraiga chimpanzee’s home range overlaps with community-managed land, primarily the Kanyanchu Swamp corridor and adjacent agricultural land. Seasonally, we found that Buraiga chimpanzees used a larger area during dry season months, compared with rainy season months. Documenting how great ape populations utilize increasingly anthropogenically influenced landscapes is important in order to facilitate long-term survival in the face of climate change, habitat fragmentation, and other ongoing threats.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Edwards, Popescu, Guma, Agaba, Balyesiima, Nakami and Stevens