Matsumoto / Poster

Preliminary study of feeding competition between baboons and chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania

Matsumoto-Oda A¹, Kasagula MB², Sprague DS^3
1 Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University
² Mahale Mountains Chimpanzee Research Project
³ National Institute of Agro-Enviromental Sciences

     In general, two species which eat the same foods can not live in the same place. However it is known that multiple species live in the same place by behavioral adaptation, such as habitat and food segregations. The Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania, is known as one of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) habitat, but other primates also live simpatorically. There are eight other species of primates are recorded: Thick-tailed galagos, Lesser galagos, Vervet monkeys, Red tailed monkeys,Blue monkeys, Red colobus, Angolan black-and-white colobus and Yellow baboons (Nishida, 1990). Among them, yellow baboons are omnivores and have the second largest body size. Chimpanzees might compete mostly with yellow baboons for their foods. The purpose of this study is to compare group sizes, activity budget, food items and range use between chimpanzees and yellow baboons, and report their ecological competition.

Nishida, T. (1990). A quarter century of research in the Mahale Mountains: an overview. In Nishida, T. (ed.) The Chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo. pp. 3-35.