Perfis comportamentais e estrutura da rede social de uma colônia cativa de Sapajus flavius (Primata ameaçado de extinção), visando sua conservação

Abstract

The blond capuchin monkey, Sapajus flavius, is a neotropical primate rediscovered in 2006, after be considered extinct for more than 200 years. Nowadays these monkey is included in the international Red List cathegoriezed as "critically endangered" and in the national one as "threatened with extinction". The objective of this work was to evaluate the behavioral profile of each component of the reproductive colony of S. flavius at Recife Zoo (State of Pernambuco, Brazil), as well as the social interactions among them. The colony was composed by seven individuals, including an independent infant. The colony was monitored three times a week, along three to four hours a day, using the instantaneous scan (one minute for the whole group), followed by one minute for each individual. Each observational sample recorded summed eight minutes, followed by a similar time interval. We used the behaviors’ acronyms of a pre-established ethogram for the genus Sapajus, in captivity. The data analyses used the absolute frequency of behavioral record of each individual (activity budget to establish the behavioral profile) and the production of sociograms derived by sociometric matrices of affiliate and agonistic behaviors. As a result, it was observed that the individual categorization were more frequent than the other categories, which are: social affiliate, social agonistic and stereotypy. Stereotypies behaviors were seen in five of the seven animals of the colony. In terms of social interactions, affiliate were more frequent than agonistic interactions. Chances in the hierarchical structure occurred along the ontogeny development of the infant, categorized as a juvenile at the end of the research. Following the behavioral protocols of the National Action Plan for the Conservation of the Northeast Primates, five of the seventh components of the colony would be able to join population recolonization actions, since the analysis of their respective behavioral profiles evidenced a great possibility of success if released in nature.