The Socioecology of Adult Female Patas Monkeys and Vervets in Kenya (Primate Field Studies) - Softcover

Pruetz, Jill D.E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0131927876 ISBN 13: 9780131927872

Publisher: Routledge, 2008

Synopsis

For upper-level and/or graduate level Primatology or Biological Anthropology courses.
Socioecology of Adult Female Patas Monkeys and Vervet in Kenya, East Africa provides students with a glimpse into a research project from start to finish.  It discusses basic issues of studying primates and explores one of the major theories that has defined primatology for several decades. This text not only contributes detail on primate behavior, but also on the ecological variables that influence primate behavior.  These are often difficult to measure, but the unique environment at the study site enabled the author to address questions that are much more difficult to answer elsewhere.

About this title

Review:

This series is a venue for the publication of PhD-level field studies of wild nonhuman primates in a format that is broadly accessible and more cohesive than the usual and sometimes artificial splicing of field study data into separately published peer-reviewed journal articles. As with other contributions to this series, both books represent a large body of data on wild primates, collected over a period of at least a year. Each monograph begins with an introductory chapter providing background material on the theoretical perspective and history of the topic, followed by information pertaining to the study population(s) and data collection methods. These introductory chapters are then followed by a series of "data chapters" that explore various aspects of the analyses--overall, a format very similar to (but more concise than) that of a PhD dissertation.

 

Pruetz (Iowa State) frames her study of patas and vervet monkeys around the basic tenets of socioecological theory, which predicts that the abundance and distribution of food resources will play a significant role in shaping patterns of sociality in female primates. In an attempt to elucidate this predictive relationship, Pruetz investigated the impact of food abundance and distribution on patterns of food competition and dominance relationships among adult females in two closely related cercopithecine primates, patas monkeys and vervet monkeys. After an in-depth, sophisticated analysis of the relationships among these various factors, Pruetz concludes that most socioecological models are too broad, and the variables insufficiently quantified, to make reliable predictions about these relationships.

 

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections. -- L. Swedell, CUNY Queens College

About the Author:

Dr. Jill Pruetz is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Iowa State University, specializing in  Biological Anthropology. As a primatologist, Dr. Pruetz has studied the behavior of non-human primates such as chimpanzees, spider monkeys, howling  monkeys, tamarins, patas monkeys, and vervets in various locales. Countries in which she has conducted fieldwork include Peru, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Kenya, and Senegal. Dr. Pruetz is especially interested in the influence of ecology on primate and early human feeding, ranging, and social behavior. She currently has a research project in southeastern Senegal which has been funded by National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0131927876
• ISBN 13: 9780131927872
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192