| Herein I document foraging ecology, use of space, habitat preferences, demography, reproductive patterns, and interspecific associations with sympatric species in golden-headed lion tamarins (Leontopithecus chrysomelas ; GHLTs) in Una Biological Reserve, Southern Bahia, Brazil. This work is based on three to ten years of field research and represents the first long-term study of the ecology and behavior of wild GHLTs. In the first chapter, I describe activity budgets, activity cycles, diet, home range size, home range overlap and the location and frequency of territorial encounters with neighboring groups. I compare these results to information available for other Leontopithecus species. In the second chapter, I examine the extent to which GHLTs used mature, swamp, secondary and agro-forests. GHLTs were habitat generalists during the day, but showed preferences for sleeping in tall forest at night. I discuss the implications for conservation management. In the third chapter, I document the timing and strategies of dispersal in GHLTs, and the age and sex of dispersers. I determined that GHLTs most likely delay dispersal and reproduction beyond the age of physical maturity, dispersal options were more limited for females than males and that group stability fluctuated considerably from year to year. I also characterize the mating system of the study population, noting that polygyny was extremely rare, and groups were as likely to contain two non-natal potentially breeding males as one breeding male. In the fourth chapter, I describe interspecific associations between GHLTs and Wied's marmosets (Callithrix kuhli) and test the null hypothesis that associations may be occurring as a result of chance encounters using computer simulation models. I outline possible costs and benefits of such associations. Results indicated that one or both species were actively maintaining associations and that each species may be using the other as a guide to trophic resources located outside their core areas. |
