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<p>Human-induced land use changes create both challenges and opportunities for wildlife. Cultivated areas represent a food source but bear a risk of human-wildlife conflict. In the Middle Atlas of Morocco, the Endangered Barbary macaques (<i>Macaca sylvanus</i>) has experienced increasing grazing in its forest habitat and conversion of pastures adjacent to forest to croplands, in which macaques now forage. Orchard owners hire wardens to deter macaques from entering croplands. To inform human-wildlife coexistence strategies, we examined how resource availability and perceived risk, measured by the daily presence of wardens and canopy openness (Barbary macaques are reluctant to cross open areas), influenced macaques’ use of crops and natural foods. Over 9 months, we monitored space use and diets in two groups, one with access to orchards and one without. We used “spatial reaction norms” to describe how each group adjusted its habitat preferences across seasons, in response to temporal variation in resource availability in the group’s home range. Our results showed that macaques selected resources based on the relative costs and benefits in the landscape. Macaques consumed naturally occurring resources throughout the study, but when anthropogenic resources were available, macaques preferentially selected them over natural foods. However, increased risk due to human deterrence associated with a resource consistently reduced its use for as long as the risk persisted. From a management perspective, these insights suggest that reducing the use of the natural resources by humans can help attract macaques to the forest but only if combined with wardens to guard the crops.</p>

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Spatial Reaction Norms of Barbary Macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in Response to Seasonal Resource Variation in Two Contrasting Landscapes

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月26日

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  • Elsa Minot,
  • Pascaline Le Gouar,
  • Zouhair Amhaouch,
  • Simon Chollet,
  • Em Demellier,
  • Aude Ernoult,
  • Nelly Ménard,
  • Juliette Menier,
  • Clara Tanvier,
  • Lucie De Wever,
  • Guillaume Péron

摘要

Human-induced land use changes create both challenges and opportunities for wildlife. Cultivated areas represent a food source but bear a risk of human-wildlife conflict. In the Middle Atlas of Morocco, the Endangered Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) has experienced increasing grazing in its forest habitat and conversion of pastures adjacent to forest to croplands, in which macaques now forage. Orchard owners hire wardens to deter macaques from entering croplands. To inform human-wildlife coexistence strategies, we examined how resource availability and perceived risk, measured by the daily presence of wardens and canopy openness (Barbary macaques are reluctant to cross open areas), influenced macaques’ use of crops and natural foods. Over 9 months, we monitored space use and diets in two groups, one with access to orchards and one without. We used “spatial reaction norms” to describe how each group adjusted its habitat preferences across seasons, in response to temporal variation in resource availability in the group’s home range. Our results showed that macaques selected resources based on the relative costs and benefits in the landscape. Macaques consumed naturally occurring resources throughout the study, but when anthropogenic resources were available, macaques preferentially selected them over natural foods. However, increased risk due to human deterrence associated with a resource consistently reduced its use for as long as the risk persisted. From a management perspective, these insights suggest that reducing the use of the natural resources by humans can help attract macaques to the forest but only if combined with wardens to guard the crops.