Measuring pad-pad pinch strength in a non-human primate: Macaca fascicularis.

The primary purpose of this study was to establish a methodology for determining and perhaps predicting (via regression analysis of anthropometric measures) Macaca fascicularis isometric pinch strength for a specific task. The larger purpose of this work was to properly scale a pinching task for the monkeys in order to study dose-response relationships in a non-human primate model for carpal tunnel syndrome. Three female and one male macaque (n = 4) of varying size and age were trained to perform a left-handed pad–pad pinch. The task required 60° of wrist flexion at a static pinching distance of 3 cm between the thumb and fingers. Subjects were trained for a period of 20-weeks. After that time, an analysis of performance gradients found that they had each reached a plateau in their force output. Pinch strength for the four animals ranged from 29.4 to 59.8 N. Regression analysis revealed that body mass (kg) and wrist circumference (cm) were both predictive of pinch strength, exhibiting adjusted R² values of 0.93 (p = 0.024) and 0.96 (p = 0.015), respectively. Thus, the results suggest that maximal pinch strength could be acceptably estimated in future subjects using either the wrist circumference or the body mass measures, as both were strong predictors of pad–pad pinch strength.     

Rapid shifting of foraging pattern by Yakushima macaques ( Macaca fuscata yakui ) in response to heavy fruiting of Myrica rubra

We describe short-term changes in foraging behavior by wild Yakushima macaques (Macaca fuscata yakui),which inhabit a warm-temperate broad—leaved forest on Yakushima Island (30°N, 131°E), Japan. Rapid changes of dietary composition, activity budget, and range use by the monkeys occurred from May to June, apparently associated with changes in the availability of the fruit of Myrica rubraBefore the fruit ripened, monkeys spent less time moving and more time feeding on many species of leaves, which accounted for 40% of feeding time. However, when M. rubrabegan to ripen, they fed intensively on the fruit, which accounted for three-fourths of feeding time,though the activity budget remained unaffected As fiuit of M. rubradecreased,the monkeys fed more on the fruit of other species and on insects, and spent more time moving at higher speeds. There marked shifts in foraging pattern occurred within only two months. In terms of moving cost and dietary quality,Yakushima macaques shifted their foraging pattern according to the availability of M. rubrafrom a “low-cost, low-yield” strategy to a “low-cost, high-yield” strategy, and then to a more costly strategy. The ability to make such rapid shifts in foraging pattern may allow the macaques to effectively use the highly variable food supply within their small range.     

Dietary selection by yakushima macaques ( Macaca fuscata yakui ): The influence of food availability and temperature

I examined dietary selection by Yakushima macaques (Macaca fuscata yakui)in relation to food availability and air temperature. Multiple regression analysis indicates that both food availability and temperature influenced the selection of foods. Feeding on young leaves, seeds, and flowers was affected more by availability, while feeding on fruits, mature leaves, and fallen seeds was affected more by temperature. Feeding on insects is strongly correlated with temperature,perhaps because availability of insects increased with temperature. These results suggest that temperature influences dietary selection of Yakushima macaques by changing the energy expenditure required for thermoregulation and through its influence on the accessibility to insects, which are an important protein source for the monkeys.     

Body Size and Proportions and Pelage Color of Free-Ranging Macaca mulatta from a Zone of Hybridization in Northeastern Thailand

Rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and long-tailed (M. fascicularis) macaques belong to the same species, and are parapatric within a zone that lies between 15° and 20° N on the Indochinese peninsula. Researchers have reported probable hybrids between the 2 species from that zone, but have not studied the extent of introgression. To test for phenotypic evidence of hybridization, we collected body mass, morphometrics (body size and proportions), and pelage color readings from free-ranging rhesus living close to the zonal boundary at Wat Tham Pa Mak Ho (WTPMH), Wang Saphun district, Loei province, northeastern Thailand (17°14′N, 101°47′E). Female WTPMH rhesus macaques (n =12) were 10–20% smaller, but with a greater relative tail length than the captive Chinese or Indian female rhesus. Female WTPMH were larger than the free-ranging long-tailed macaques, but with similar limb proportions and a shorter relative tail length. The WTPMH rhesus macaques also displayed the bipartite pelage color pattern typical of Macaca mulatta . The evidence suggests slight contribution of long-tailed macaques to the gene pool of the WTPMH population. Further sampling of other macaque populations within the zone and genetic analysis are essential to address better the question of hybridization. Determination of the distribution and range of biobehavioral variation of macaques within the zone is urgently needed, because their habitat is being rapidly destroyed by deforestation, and their demography and social structure are threatened by artificial disturbance.     

Male dominance rank and reproductive success in primate groups

The relationship between male dominance rank and reproductive success has been a topic of interest since the beginning of primatology. From a theoretical point of view the existence or absence of this relationship has great implications with respect to the meaning of dominance rank and more general of the social relationships between individuals within social groups. Until fairly recently mating behaviour has been used as an indicator of reproductive success, but these two variables need not be correlated. The relations between mating success, reproductive success, and dominance rank indicate whether selective mating is involved (different mating partners at different phases of fertility, for example through male contest or female choice). With the development of genetic techniques to determine reproductive success directly, it has now become possible to investigate these relations. In our study on wild long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) we find a relatively strong correlation between rank and reproductive success which is attributable to selective mating by the alpha male during fertile periods of the females. In most previous studies no such clear results have been obtained, and we discuss the differences in outcome in relation to the study conditions, group sizes, and possible differences between species in terms of reproductive strategies.     

Grooming and Infant Handling Interchange in <Emphasis Type=Italic>Macaca fascicularis</Emphasis>: The Relationship Between Infant Supply and Grooming Payment

Female long-tailed macaques are attracted to infants and frequently groom mothers bearing them. Such grooming often involves the groomer contacting the infant and may be a trade of grooming for infant handling. To identify if grooming and infant handling are directly traded, I collected samples on times after female-to-mother grooming and on interactions in which a female groomed a mother and contacted her infant. I determined that grooming tended to promote an exchange with infant handling and that the supply of available infants was related to how long a female groomed a mother. Grooming interactions were longer when infants were scarce in the surrounding social environment than when they were abundant, indicating a possible supply-and-demand effect. This supports that grooming may be payment for infant handling. Grooming-infant handling interchanges tended to be unidirectional as mothers usually did not reciprocate grooming. Instead, infant contact occurred. A larger proportion of grooming-infant handling interchanges involved younger infants, but infant age did not seem to influence grooming durations. The length of female-to-mother grooming had no observable effect on handling time. Lower-ranked females groomed higher-ranked mothers and their infants longer than vice versa. Moreover, it was possible to predict up-rank grooming via supply and demand better than down-rank grooming. There was no observable influence of kinship on grooming-infant handling interchange. These results support the conclusion that grooming and infant handling may be traded. Grooming promoted infant handling, while supply and rank predicted the grooming payment a female would offer to access an infant.     

Alternative seed-handling strategies in primates: seed-spitting by long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

Summary The seeds in fruits consumed by primates may be chewed and digested, swallowed and defecated intact, or separated from the flesh and spat out. We show by a combination of close field observations and experiments with caged animals, that long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) have a remarkably low threshold of 3–4 mm for swallowing seeds and also that wild macaques rarely break them. The seeds of 69% of the ripe fruit species eaten are spat out intact or cleaned outside the mouth and dropped. Seed-spitting significantly reduces the swallowed food bulk and may lessen the risk of releasing seed toxins during mastication. However, it requires that even small fruits are processed in the mouth one or a few at a time. We suggest that fruit storage in the cheek pouches of cercopithecine monkeys allows them to spit seeds individually without excessively slowing fruit intake while feeding on patchily distributed fruit. In contrast, Apes and New World monkeys apparently swallow and defecate most ripe seeds in their diet and colobine monkeys break and digest them, detoxifying seed defenses by bacterial fermentation.     

Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial Markers in Macaca fascicularis Indicate Introgression with Indochinese M. mulatta and a Biogeographic Barrier in the Isthmus of Kra

This is the first report of Y-chromosome introgression between primate species. We sequenced 3.1 Kb of Y-chromosome DNA and 1.5 Kb of mtDNA for 27 macaques of Fooden's (Folia Primatol. [1976] 25: 225–236) fascicularis species group and 5 outgroup taxa (Macaca sylvanus, Papio hamadryas, Theropithecus gelada, Allenopithecus nigroviridis, and Cercopithecus mona). Phylogenies constructed separately for the paternal and maternal data sets show a Y-chromosome paraphyly among lineages of Macacafascicularis, but a mitochondrial monophyly for the same individuals. The Y-chromosome topology depicts Indochinese Macaca fascicularis haplotypes joining with those of M. mulatta, followed by M. cyclopis and M. fuscata, before clustering with a clade of lineages of M. fascicularis from peninsular Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. These contrasting patterns of mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA, evaluated in the context of the evolutionary consequences of macaque sex-biased dispersal, present strong evidence for contemporary hybridization between Macaca fascicularis and M. mulatta in Indochina and a biogeographic barrier in the Isthmus of Kra.     

Phylogeny of Caragana (Fabaceae) based on DNA sequence data from rbcL, trnS–trnG, and ITS

Phylogenetic relationships of 48 species of Caragana (Fabaceae: tribe Hedysareae) and one representative each of Astragalus, Calophaca, Halimodendron, and Hedysarum are estimated from DNA sequences of the rbcL gene, trnS–trnG intron and spacer, and ITS region. At least one representative of all five sections and 12 series within Caragana are included. Analyses yielded strongly supported clades corresponding to sections Caragana, Bracteolatae, and Frutescentes. The species of section Jubatae are distributed among three strongly supported clades, i.e., one with the species of section Bracteolatae, another with two species of section Spinosae, and a third as sister to section Frutescentes. All but the last of these six clades are corroborated by at least one unambiguously traced morphological character. The placement of the other four species of section Spinosae are not well supported and lack unambiguous morphological synapomorphies, and the samples of Calophaca and Halimodendron nest within Caragana with weak support.     

Corylomyces: a new genus of Sordariales from plant debris in France

The new genus Corylomyces, isolated from the surface of a hazelnut (Corylus avellana) in the French Pyrenees, is described, illustrated and compared with morphologically similar taxa. It is characterised by tomentose, ostiolate ascomata possessing long necks composed of erect to sinuose hairs, and one- or two-celled, opaque, lunate to reniform ascospores. Analyses of the SSU and LSU fragments rDNA gene sequences support its placement in the Lasiosphaeriaceae (Sordariales).     

Tail-Length Evolution in Fascicularis-Group Macaques (Cercopithecidae: Macaca)

In the four species of macaques that constitute the fascicularis-group, relative tail length generally decreases with increasing latitude, in accord with Allen's Rule. Although this generalization applies to Macaca mulatta in the northern part of its range—north of ca. 26°N, it does not apply south of ca. 26°N, where the tail is anomalously short in Macaca mulatta. This suggests that the anomalously short-tailed population of Macaca mulatta did not originate within its present latitudinal range, but instead dispersed there from farther north. The anomalously short-tailed population apparently replaced a now-extinct longer-tailed population, from which founders of insular Macaca cyclopis previously had been derived. Southward dispersal of the anomalously short-tailed population of Macaca mulatta, and correlated extinction of the longer-tailed population that it apparently replaced, may have been induced by a major glacial advance.     

Feeding Competition in <Emphasis Type=Italic>Macaca fascicularis</Emphasis>: An Assessment of the Early Arrival Tactic

In primate species with unidirectional dominance relationships, rank order restricts the access of nondominant females to clumped resources. However, females might attempt to bypass the rank order by reaching feeding sites before the highest ranking individuals (early arrival tactic) when there are net benefits. We therefore analyzed the order of arrival to the feeding site of the adult members of a captive group of long-tailed macaques. We used 2 experimental conditions that differed in the spatial distribution of a fixed amount of food (large vs. small patch). Though each condition induced contest competition, it was stronger in the small-patch condition. Arrival order does not correlate with dominance rank in either experimental condition. The α-male and α-female reached the feeding site 10–30 s after the beginning of the test. Some females seized on opportunities to reach the feeding site before them, especially in the large-patch condition. They used the early arrival tactic when the risks of aggression were relatively low, which subjects accomplished either by being dominant or by being nondominant but tolerated by the α-male. Social tolerance may provide individuals with an alternative means to obtain resources. In sum, variation in food abundance and distribution may affect the extent to which rank order determines order of arrival to feeding sites. A higher rank may confer priority in the choice of tactics, but not necessarily priority of access to the resources themselves.     

Monitored releases of Rhinoncomimus latipes (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), a biological control agent of mile-a-minute weed (Persicaria perfoliata), 2004–2008

Mile-a-minute weed, Persicaria perfoliata (L.) H. Gross, is an invasive annual vine of Asian origin that has developed extensive monocultures, especially in disturbed open areas in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. A host-specific Asian weevil, Rhinoncomimus latipes Korotyaev, was approved for release in North America in 2004, and weevils have been reared at the New Jersey Department of Agriculture Beneficial Insect Laboratory since then. By the end of 2007 more than 53,000 weevils had been reared and released, mostly in New Jersey, but also in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The beetles established at 63 out of 65 sites (96.9%) where they were released between 2004 and 2007, with successful releases consisting of as few as 200 weevils. Weevils were recorded at 30 additional non-release sites in New Jersey, where they had dispersed at an average rate of 4.3 km/year. Standardized monitoring of fixed quadrats was conducted in paired release and control sites at eight locations. Significant differences in mile-a-minute weed populations in the presence and absence of weevils were found at three locations, with reduction in spring densities to 25% or less of what they had been at the start within 2–3 years at release sites, while weed densities at control sites were largely unchanged. Mile-a-minute weed populations at a fourth site were similarly reduced at the release site, but without control data for comparison due to rapid colonization of the paired control site. At the other four locations, all on islands, mile-a-minute weed populations were reduced at both release and control sites without large weevil populations developing, apparently due to environmental conditions such as late frost and extreme drought.     

Mouse/human chimeric anti-HIV-1 gp120 antibody to the principal neutralizing determinant: Tolerability and pharmacokinetics in cynomolgus monkeys,Macaca fascicularis

In preparing for testing a pharmaceutical grade preparation of chimeric (mouse/human) antibody CGP 47 439 in HIV-1 infected individuals, it was administered toMacaca fascicularis (cynomolgus) monkeys to study tolerability, immunogenicity and pharmacokinetics. Four groups of monkeys, three males and three females per group, received respectively four infusions of 0, 1.43, 4.3, and 14.3 mg of CGP 47 4391 kg body weight at one-week intervals. The chimeric antibody induced no fever, was tolerated well throughout the 50-day observation period, elicited no tissue damage and no anti-antibody response. The pharmacokinetic profile was similar at all dose levels with a mean T_1/2 of 14.2 h (range 11.8–19.3 h) and a mean T_1/2 of 172.6h (range 137.2–220.5h). Following four successive antibody infusions serum concentrations of CGP 47 439 increased without reaching a steady state, and its measured concentrations were comparable to the simulated values. Collectively the study has provided safety and pharmacokinetic data that would allow human studies with this antibody in AIDS patients.