Project

We study population, feeding, and behavioral ecology of Japanese macaques in Yakushima living in various habitats from the coast to the summit, with special emphasis on the effect of their habitat with minimum human disturbances.

Hanya organizes a census team with many students joining voluntarily from all over Japan and conducts census of Japanese macaques in the high-altitude coniferous forest every summer. He aims to reveal the effect of forest regeneration after logging and also the supra-annual fluctuations of fruiting on the macaque population. He also conducts various comparative studies between the highland and lowland Yakushima regarding diet, population density, activity budget, behavioral thermoregulation, aggression during feeding, social organizations, leaf selection, etc. of Japanese macaques.

Honda studies the land use and diet of Japanese macaques living in the summit area of Yakushima.

HE studies the feeding behavior, food toughness and mastication of Japanese macaques in the lowland forest of Yakushima.

We study the relationships between primate communities and the habitat, such as forest structure and fruit production, which would be useful to suggest effective conservation options in degraded or fragmented tropical and subtropical forests.

Yumoto studies on how Africa great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and bononos) utilize various habitat types.

Hanya studies how Japanese macaques in Yakushima affect various organisms via feeding on leaves, fruits, and mushrooms. He also studies the ecology haematophagous leeches and flies which potentially collect genetic samples of wild mammals.

We study the gut microbe as an adaptation for primates to digest various kinds of foods.

Sawada, Lee and Hanya conduct molecular biological studies on the relationships between primate diet and gut microbiota and evaluate fermentation ability using in vitro fermentation assay, for wild Japanese macaques in Yakushima and other populations, orangutans in Malaysia, black-and-white colobus monkeys in Uganda, bamboo lemurs in Madagascar, and many other primates in Gabon, Thailand, China, and Morocco.

We conduct various ecological studies in several African tropical forests, which is a home for four species of great apes and other various primates.

Hashimoto studies chimpanzees in Kalinzu, Uganda and bonobos in Wamba, Democratic Republic of Congo. She collects data on the ranging and behavior of chimpanzees to reveal how their behavior and social interactions are affected by the environment, combining with quantitative assessment of vegetation and fruit production. With Mouri, she conduct genetic and endocrinological studies using non-invasive samples, such as feces and urine.

In Kalinzu, we also conduct comparative ecological studies for the three species guenons living sympatrically (red-tailed, blue, and l'Host monkeys). Toge compares the diet of the three species by behavioral observation and genetic analysis of the feces.

We study various topics on the primates in several forests in Sabah, Malaysian state of Borneo, such as ecological mechanism that various species coexist, feeding ecology of red leaf monkeys, gut mcirobe, with special emphasis on the effect of mast fruiting.

Kanamori conducts a long-term research on the wild orangutans in Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah, since 2004.

We study feeding ecology of New World primates in Amazon.

Yumoto and Take are members of the SATREPS project on the field museum of Kyoto University and National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA), Brazil. In particular, we study the three species of primates (pied tamarin, common squirrel monkey, gold-face saki) living in a forest fragment in Manaus. To understand their adaptive ability to survive in a forest fragment, we collect basic dietary data for these species.