Living Links is a field station and research centre of the University of St Andrews, established in partnership with the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and Edinburgh Zoo. It has large outside and inside enclosures in which capuchin monkeys and squirrel monkeys live together. These species form mixed-species groups in the wild.
Living Together: Life and Welfare in Mixed-Species Groups
Professor Hannah Buchanan-Smith (Stirling)
Dr Scott Hardie (Abertay)
Dr Klaus Zuberbuhler (St Andrews)
In the wild, capuchins and squirrel monkeys move around together, each perhaps benefiting from the other in vigilance against predators, and gaining feeding advantages (squirrel monkeys grabbing insects disturbed by the larger capuchins vigorous foraging behaviour). We are therefore housing them together in Living Links, as has happened in captive groupings in other zoos. However, the consequences of this mixing have never been studied and here we are doing so. First we are taking measurements of behaviour while one group lives by itself, then collecting the same measures after mixing. We also hope to discover the effects of a mixed species exhibit on public perceptions about these primates.
Living Links is designed to support studies by scientists at the Universities of St Andrews, Stirling, Edinburgh and Abertay, who together form the Scottish Primate Research Group (SPRG). Members of SPRG study primate behaviour at many field-sites in the wild, as well as in captivity.
Film by Mark Bowler
13 окт 2009
