Grant: Discovery Launch Supplement

My proposed research program focuses on behavioural plasticity in response to challenging circumstances in wild and free-ranging nonhuman primates, and links these behavioural responses to larger-scale ecological changes and pressures. My long-term objective is to quantify the scope and limits of behavioural plasticity among primates, and link this to resilience at a variety of scales - from the individual organism to regional and global scales. Research in my lab group integrates animal behaviour data collection with technological approaches for remote GPS and photographic data collection and global and regional-scale spatial modeling. My field research program focuses on three main study systems: 1) A free-ranging population of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) at the Awajishima Monkey Center (AMC) in Japan; 2) Bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus: Near Threatened species) in Rescue Centres and released contexts in northeastern Brazil; and 3) Blond capuchin monkeys (Sapajus flavius: Endangered species) in an Atlantic Forest fragment surrounded by industry and agriculture. With my students over the next five years, I plan: 1) to quantify the relationship between physical impairment/disability and behavioural plasticity, testing the "necessity drives innovation" hypothesis and contributing to testing the "plasticity reduces extinction risk" hypothesis; 2a) to provide explicit links among behavioural plasticity, personality, stereotyped behaviours and welfare variables on rehabilitation and release success in captive primates, in order to predict how individual behavioural and physical condition variables may buffer stresses associated with release into the wild; and 2b) to integrate spatial-ecological data to model and map release locations that will maximize post-release survival; 3a) to quantify foraging behavioural plasticity and potential social niche differentiation and link these factors to group movement and habitat using the "spatial-social interface" hypothesis to test the prediction that foraging behavioural plasticity will lead to increased food intake and buffer against anthropogenic pressures in a degraded, isolated fragment; and 3b) to use this system to model and map habitat suitability, incorporating behavioural plasticity and climate change. Human-induced environmental change is occurring at unprecedented rates, impacting every facet of animal lives. Measuring limits to behavioural plasticity advances knowledge on resilience and the selection pressures that animals face. With the UN Decade of Restoration, and a global focus on biodiversity conservation, data on how individual animals adjust their behaviours to compensate for challenging circumstances - such as living with physical impairment and disability, living in small habitat fragments, or learning to live in the wild after rehabilitation and release from captive environments - informs efforts to mitigate negative impacts of human-induced environmental change.