Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
India. As a result, both human and rhesus populations have shown various
stages of change. After a brief description of the methods of this study, these
stages are summarized in the Results.
Methods
This field study began in 1959 in association with Aligarh Muslim University
in Aligarh, U.P. (i.e., Uttar Pradesh, formerly the United Provinces), north cen-
tral India. Aligarh is a city in the rich agricultural area of the Gangetic basin,
130 km southeast of New Delhi. Our first objectives were to obtain field data on
the abundance, group sizes, sex and age ratios, and habitat distribution of rhesus
monkeys in India, primarily in Uttar Pradesh, but extending to the neighbor-
ing states of Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal
Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal. We undertook systematic surveys of forests,
agricultural areas, roadsides, canal banks, villages, towns, cities, temples, and
public areas such as parks, archaeological sites, and railway stations. Much of
our field coverage was on foot, but we also traveled by bicycle, motor scooter,
automobile, and occasionally by train or boat to cover greater distances.
In Aligarh District, we selected a representative sample of 20 groups in vari-
ous typical habitats to census three times annually: In February, before the
birth season; in June and July, after the birth season; and in November, after the
monsoon and before winter. We did not include a local Hindu Temple site in
these annual censuses. Three annual censuses were maintained for 25 years -
for the remainder of this 50-year study, we reduced annual censuses to just one
a year, in June and July.
Throughout the 50 years of this project, our goals have focused on population
abundance, group sizes, sex and age ratios of groups, geographic and habitat distri-
bution, population trends, and ecologic relations with other animals and humans.
Several short-term studies of social behavior and ethology were also done, but the
emphasis in this paper is on population ecology. Similar field research on rhesus
was also undertaken in neighboring countries including Nepal, Burma [Myanmar]
Bangladesh, and China. Details on ecological and behavioral field methods are
given in other papers listed in the references (Southwick, Beg and Siddiqi, 1961a,
1961b
,
1965
; Southwick
et al
., 1980; Southwick and Siddiqi,
2001
).
Results
The introduction lists four types of influences affecting rhesus monkey popula-
tions in India: demographic, economic (and political), cultural, and ecologic.
