Evolutionary Ecology of Primates in Dry Habitat of Africa

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We conducted survey on the hybridization between Papio hamadryas and Papio anubis along the Wabi-Shebeli river, southern Ethiopia in 1990. While conspicuous hybridization occurred only in a narrow area along the river, the low ratio of hybridization occurred in a very wide area depending on the migration of solitary anubis males.The hamadryas baboons in the Bale Region live in arid and highest altitude (2400m) habitat which correspond to the gelada's. The activity pattern and food habits of hamadryas baboons were studied. The group used larger proportion of its time budget for moving than the groups in the lowland, because of poor habitat for finding fruits. Thus the study site seemed a limit for their adaptation to high altitude. This is important for the evaluation of their phylogeny, adaptation process, and niche separation from geladas.As the security situation in southern Ethiopia was rather unsafe, we changed our subject to gelada baboons in northern Ethiopia in 1991. The gelada baboons also have multi-level society as hamadryas baboons. The gelada group in the village Aboliager, Showa region, was habituated, and could be observed as near as in five meters. The group showed extraordinary low ratio of adult males as compared with previous studies. We found various characteristics of low competition among adult males, and could examine the factors for the establishment of one-male-unit in this condition.We captured 43 geladas, and took their blood samples in the Semien National Park, northern Ethiopia. This will be analyzed and be compared with our former research in Fiche, Showa Region in order to examine the genetic difference in local populations.Dr. H. Ohsawa studied on social and reproductive behaviors of patas monkeys in southern Saher edge. The sexual competition between group males and outsiders was observed.