Factors affecting provisioning and foraging in rapidly changing landscapes

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Foraging decisions affect nutrition, social relationships, and between-population encounters. Humans and animals may come into conflict over shared resources, affecting subsistence in both cases. Despite significant research on what leads to specific foraging decisions, little is known about how recent, rapid, dramatic changes in landscape affect what an individual chooses to eat and where. Individual differences interact with cultural variation in provisioning to affect the costs and benefits of specific foraging decisions in such contexts. To understand these complex dynamics, this project uses theoretical models from biocultural anthropology to investigate the factors affecting decisions to forage and provision in a rapidly changing social and ecological landscape. The project supports early-career researchers based at two minority-serving institutions, multi-institution collaborations, and student training. It disseminates research broadly to academic and non-academic audiences and develops statistical software and educational curricula to facilitate knowledge generation and spread. The researchers focus on how primates and people interact and mutually impact one another’s behavior in contexts where agricultural intensification is rapidly modifying traditional landscapes. Specifically, the project goals are to: 1) determine how human-modified habitats shape macaque behavior; 2) examine people’s motivations to engage in interactions with macaques; and 3) develop novel statistical methods to examine social networks and behavior. To accomplish these objectives, the project team collects longitudinal data on macaque social and ranging behavior, human-macaque interactions, and forest food availability data, and conducts ethnographic interviews. This research can advance knowledge and understanding of collective decision making, how primates adapt to expanding anthropogenic pressures, and the factors driving human-wildlife interactions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.