Cattle ranching, agriculture and other human activities are turning Costa Rican forests into isolated patchy fragments, causing more problems for native plant populations than for monkey species sharing the same habitat.
Cattle ranching, agriculture and other human activities are turning Costa Rican forests into isolated patchy fragments, causing more problems for native plant populations than for monkey species sharing the same habitat.
A study published in the journal Primates shows that while plants growing near the edges of cleared regions are negatively impacted by human activity, monkeys sharing the same habitat do not fare as poorly.
“These results suggest that the monkey species studied are resilient enough to withstand some fragmentation of their habitat,” said Laura Bolt, a lecturer in the department of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto, and lead author of the study.
Bolt and her colleagues conducted vegetation and monkey population surveys at the La Suerte Biological Research Station site in northeastern Costa Rica, a patch of tropical rainforest in a largely deforested region.
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Image via Maderas Rainforest Conservancy.
