Program

Friday, June 26 - Primate Behavior Workshop

• 9:00 Registration and light breakfast
• 9:30 Welcome and introduction of presenters
• 9:45 Formal presentations
• 10:30 Tea Break
• 11:00 Practical Session
  • Jennifer Danzy and Fabien Genin – Observing primate behavior
  • Trudy Turner – Morphological measurements
• 12:30 Lunch

Saturday, June 27 - PEGG Programing

• 14:30 Zoo Tour
• 17:30 Registration, Ice Breaker and Dinner

Saturday, June 21 - PEGG Programing

• 8:30 Registration and Light Breakfast; Welcome; Scientific Session 1
  • Welcome by NZG Business Development Manager
  • Primate Origins, Genetics, and Taxonomy
    • Judith Masters - Cheirogaleid model of primate origins
    • Riashna Sithaldeen - The evolution of Papio; Our current understanding of baboon phylogenetic relationships
    • Jacqui Bishop - Baboons in conflict: Using genetic approaches to inform management decisions
    • Desire Dalton and Annesca Bubb - Genetics of the Suikerbosrand Baboon population
    • Tim Newman - Inbreeding, Isolation, and the Perilous State of the Cape Peninsula Chacma Baboon: A Case for Genetic Rescue?
    • Trudy Turner and Paul Grobler - Integrated genomics and genetics of a model system
• 10:30 Tea Break
• 11:00 Scientific Session 2
  • Skeletal and Morphological Variation
    • Becky Ackermann - Cranial morphology of hybrid primates and other mammals
    • Ntuthuzelo Makhasi - Morphological variation in samango monkeys
    • Jennifer Danzy - Developmental patterns of scrotal coloration among wild vervet monkeys
    • James Pampush - Human food opportunities and vervet body size
    • Paula Pebsworth - Self-medicative behavior in chacma baboons
    • Esme Beamish, Damiana Ravasi, Tali Hoffman, and Justin O'Riain - Population dynamics, parasites, and habitat use of the Cape Peninsula baboon population.
• 12:30 Lunch
• 13:30 Scientific Session 3
  • Socioecology
    • Fabien Genin - Socio-ecological model of primate social organization
    • Julia Nowack - Energy expenditure and strategies to cope with high seasonality in the African lesser bushbaby
    • Guy Randriatahina - Affiliative behavior in blue eyed black lemurs at Ankarafa forest, Sahamalaza Island, Radama National Park: Implications for group cohesion
    • Riccardo Pansini - Vervet research at Loskop
    • Emilie Tournier - Is the diet of wild vervet monkeys (C. aethiops) determined by ecology or by some cultural trait?
• 15:00 Tea Break
• 15:30 Scientific Session 4
  • Conservation, Zoos and Sanctuaries
    • Marti Scholtz-Koen and Ton van Niekerk - Stress and cortisol in bushbabies
    • Dave Morgan - Managing Populations for Conservation Breeding
    • Sylviane Volampeno - Involving local community: A model of blue-eyed black lemur (Eulemur macaco flavifrons) conservation
    • Jan and James Hampton - Reasons for Rehabilitation
• 18:30 for 19:00 Gala Concluding Dinner at the Zoo at the Aquarium

Submitted Abstracts:

Julia Nowack
Presentation of PhD-Project: Energy expenditure and strategies to cope with high seasonality in the African lesser bushbaby, Galago moholi (Galagidae)

Many endothermic species have evolved a strategy to deal with seasonal food shortage and low ambient temperature by entering torpor or hibernation. The African lesser bushbaby, Galago moholi, comply with all the preconditions to use heterothermy. It is a small nocturnal primate, which lives in a highly seasonal habitat with a hot wet-season and a cold dry-season with probably lower food abundance. Furthermore G. moholi is one of the closest relatives of Malagasy lemurs, which are known to undergo torpor and hibernation. Nevertheless, a previous study based on measurements of body temperature of G. moholi failed to find any incidence of heterothermy. However, recent studies have shown that physiological traits are not as fixed as previously thought and physiological parameters can differ even within populations. Furthermore methodology has improved in the last years and allows new insights in an animal’s energy expenditure.
Therefore the presented study aims to investigate the plasticity of physiological parameters (especially of thermoregulation and energy budgets) as well as other adaptations to extreme seasonality (home range usage, feeding ecology and behaviour) in a year round study on G. moholi and I will present you the first data I’ll get during fieldwork from March to June 2009.

Emilie Tournier, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Is the Diet of Wild Vervet Monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) determined by the ecology or by some cultural traits?

The foraging behaviour of primates is often studied because it varies within populations. It has often been showed that the feeding habits can be transmitted from the mother to the juveniles, however, the ecology and the vegetation present in the home range where the monkeys live seems also to have an importance in the choice of the diet. To assume if the diet of Vervet Monkeys, Cercopithecus aethiops, is determined by the ecology or by some cultural traits, I observed what kind of food six groups of Vervets eat in the wild, especially on which trees they feed. I compared these data taken using the scan method with phenological data taken on reference trees of 14 tree species, which were assumed to be the most consumed ones. Maps of the home ranges were made to estimate the abundance of these species within each territory. It appears that the groups feed in a significantly different way, but they all feed mainly on trees. They show different preferences for the most consumed tree species and item eaten, but these preferences are not always correlated with the abundance of the species or the amount of food carried by the trees. This suggests that the ecology explains quite a bit the diet, but not all, and thus, some cultural traits might also be important to determine the composition of the diet.