I collected data on diet and habitat use of the white-bellied spider monkey (Ateles belzebuth chamek) during a long-term study (>2,000 contact hours) at the 10 km2 Cocha Cashu Biological Station. Cocha Cashu is situated around an oxbow lake of the Manu River in southeastern Peru at 11°54’S and 71°22’W and is located in the 18,182 km2 Manu National Park. Mean annual rainfall is about 2,000 mm. The vegetation is a mixture of mature and successional floodplain lowland rain forest.
GPS waypoints, tree family and species, and type of tree (e.g., feeding, resting, sleeping) were recorded for roughly 825 trees that the spider monkeys used over five years. I will investigate the diet and habitat use of these animals by using GIS and overlay these data on the Cocha Cashu trail system base map and satellite images.
The field portion of this project was supported by grants from the Fulbright Institute of International Education, L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, Organization for Tropical Studies Francis J. Bossuyt and David and Deborah Clark Fellowship, National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, John Perry Miller Fund, Williams Fund, and Yale University.