Primates in Fragments Ecology and Conservation
This volume was created initially from a symposium of the same name presented at the International Primatological Society's XVIII Congress in Adelaide. South Australia. 6-12 January 2000. Many of the authors who have contributed to this text could not att
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Primates in Fragments Ecology and Conservation
Edited by
Laura K. Marsh Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, New Mexico
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSlNESS MEDIA, LLC
ISBN 978-1-4757-3772-1 ISBN 978-1-4757-3770-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4757-3770-7
©2003 Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer AcademiclPlenum Publishers, New York in 2003 Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 2003 http://www.wkap.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work
This book is dedicated to my mom, Janet G. Marsh, for going with me to Kenya when I was 14 and for sending me by myself when I was 18 to meet strangers in Panama to do primate research. Her unending support has been truly appreciated.
PREFACE
This volume was created initially from a symposium of the same name presented at the International Primatological Society's XVIII Congress in Adelaide. South Australia. 6-12 January 2000. Many of the authors who have contributed to this text could not attend the symposium. so this has become another vehicle for the rapidly growing discipline of Fragmentation Science among primatologists. Fragmentation has quickly become a field separate from general ecology. which underscores the severity of the situation since we as a planet are rapidly losing habitat of all types to human disturbance. Getting ecologists. particularly primatologists. to admit that they study in fragments is not easy. In the field of primatology. one studies many things. but rarely do those things (genetics. behavior. population dynamics) get called out as studies in fragmentation. For some reason "fragmentation primatologists" fear that our work is somehow "not as good" as those who study in continuous habitat. We worry that perhaps our subjects are not demonstrating as robust behaviors as they "should" given fragmented or disturbed habitat conditions. I had a colleague openly state that she did not work in fragmented forests. that she merely studied behavior when it was clear that her study sites. everyone of them. was isolated habitat. Our desire to be just another link in the data chain for wild primates is so strong that it makes us deny what kinds of habitats we are working in. However. the time has come to embrace Fragmentation Science as a field and to pursue it vigorously within primatology. We as scientists have chosen to study in undesirable habitats as our field of concern. This is unfortunate because habitats are degraded. and unfortunate because we aU enjoy pristine habitats. But frankly. it is a good thing we chose the "less desirable"
