"Four-Wheel Drive Truck to Access Remote Areas of Kibale National Park, Uganda"

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My long-term goal is to work at the interface of behaviour and ecology to develop general principles concerning ecological determinants of the abundance and social organization of primates. To operate on the necessary scale to meet the goals of my research group, mobility is a critical everyday issue. We work year-round in and around Kibale National Park, Uganda, where the vast majority of roads are poorly maintained dirt roads and only accessible with a reliable 4-wheel drive. Several of my research projects require traveling large distances and sampling from different regions, far from our home base. For example, I am building on my prior research on nutritional requirements and parasite disease ecology to explore the relatively new field of spatial epidemiology. This project will determine how ecological factors lead to spatial variation in elevated transmission probability and influence the spread of diseases (i.e., identify ecological and demographic correlates of disease hotspots). A vehicle is required to collect samples from different ecological zones within Kibale. Indeed, this research would not be possible without a reliable vehicle. Also, we are extending a 42 year data set on forest change and quantifying corresponding changes in the wildlife community. This work has already produced several published papers in peer-reviewed journals and the more data that is collected to build on our long-term data, the more valuable becomes our contribution to theoretical (non-equilibrium) and conservation issues. Kibale encompasses 795 km2 and due to the presence of large predators and elephants in the park, it would be unsafe to walk out of the park if a vehicle was to breakdown.