Abstract
Habituation is used in most field research with primates to minimize observer effects on their behavior. Despite its importance, there is little published on the methods used to habituate different taxa of primates or how these methods vary in different habitat types. We assessed changes in behavior and space use of two groups of Leontocebus lagonotus in the Ecuadorian Amazon in order to document this process. Although the subjects had not been studied before, visitors and researchers were more frequently in the home range of Group 1 than of Group 2. We followed both groups for 2 months, collecting behavioral data through scan sampling and recording the use of space (ground, understory, subcanopy, and canopy) and the routes along which we followed the groups. We then divided our data into two equivalent stages, randomized the data for each stage and looked for significant differences using Wilcoxon tests. Our results show a significant decrease in submissive behaviors toward the observer for both groups and a significant increase in resting and foraging for Group 1. In addition, Group 2 used the subcanopy significantly less and the understory more during the second stage. The routes the animals used were significantly longer in the second stage for Group 1, but not for Group 2. We conclude that our methodology is adequate to advance in the habituation of L. lagonotus in less than 2 months and that a group will habituate more quickly if it has had some previous neutral exposure to humans.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID), N/Ref./Expediente n. 2015/SPE/0000400126. We would like to thank the Fundació Universitat de Girona: Innovació i Formació and the Universidad Regional Amazónica Ikiam for the agreement that made possible our research in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We are also thankful to the staff of the Jatun Sacha Biological Station for allowing and facilitating our research in the reserve and for their kindness during our stay. We especially want to thank Alejandro Suárez (former director of the JSBS) for providing us with the documents from which we created the maps of the reserve and, above all, for his valuable support throughout the entire study. We would like to thank Dr. Stella de la Torre for sharing her useful knowledge about Leontocebus lagonotus. Finally, we are grateful to Dr. Eckhard W. Heymann and to two anonymous reviewers, whose interest and helpful comments greatly improved the quality of this article. We confirm that our research complies with the legal and ethical requirements for the study of wild primates in Ecuador. The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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All authors contributed significantly to the study. The design of the work was carried out by Sara ÁS and SV-A. Data collection was performed by SV-A and LS-S. Data analysis and interpretation was performed by SV-A and Sara ÁS. The first draft was written by SV-A and both Sara ÁS and LS-S contributed to its improvement with comments and work in the elaboration of the figures. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Vicente-Alonso, S., Sánchez-Sánchez, L. & Álvarez Solas, S. On the way to systematize habituation: a protocol to minimize the effects of observer presence on wild groups of Leontocebus lagonotus. Primates 62, 407–415 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-020-00877-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-020-00877-4