Daily Activity and Feeding Ecology of Long-tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis) in Alas Purwo National Park, East Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Food availability is an important factor affecting the feeding strategy of animals. Primate species in habitats with greater human activity should employ unique strategies to use both natural and human food resources. This study described behavioral aspects of free-ranging long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) inhabiting Alas Purwo National Park, East Java, Indonesia. The activity budgets, dietary compositions, vertical usages, and ranging patterns of the macaques were recorded between October 2021 and March 2022 and examined the difference between day types and the relationships between these variables and the plant phenology index (a proxy of natural food availability) or the number of visitors (a proxy of human food availability). Using the scan sampling method (5-min scans with 15-min intervals), the macaques had been recorded consumed human foods (53.9%) than natural foods (42.5%). Several clear effects of human foods on behavioral aspects were showed: the macaques reduced moving and increased social activity in response to the number of visitors. The macaques consumed human food more, frequently used ground and sub-canopy strata, and their home range became smaller when the number of visitors increased. In contrast, the phenology index showed no significant relationships with macaques' behavioral aspects. This result implied that the relative importance of human provisioning on macaque behavior was much greater than that of natural foods. In order to decrease the risk of human-macaque conflict and zoonotic transmission, regulation of provisioning would be necessary.