Date of Award

Summer 8-9-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Andrea Baden

Second Advisor

Jessica Rothman

Academic Program Adviser

Diana Reiss

Abstract

In primate societies, caring for infants involves nursing, protection, provisioning, and carrying - all energetically taxing states for mothers. The cost of holding and carrying clinging infants often constrains mothers from moving and traveling, potentially reducing their food and energy intake. Alternatively, when an infant is physically separated from their mother they are at risk of predation from birds of prey or other large mammals. This requires a high level of vigilance from mothers, often further deterring them from acquiring the food and energy that they need. Allomaternal care (AMC) is hypothesized to provide mothers with a way to safely detach from their infants to feed and forage, allowing them to replenish their depleted energy stores. This thesis aimed to test this idea by investigating the function of AMC in a wild, forest-living colobine (Colobus guereza). The objective of this study was to document the nature of AMC in C. guereza and to determine the potential feeding benefits for lactating mothers during AMC. Research was conducted in Kibale National Park, Uganda, where seven mother-infant dyads in three groups of C. guereza were observed during six consecutive months (from the beginning of July through the end of December, 2017) resulting in a total of 661 observation hours (N=864 AMC bouts). The average AMC bout length was 49 seconds (range=638 seconds, SD=0.01). Juveniles and subadults handled infants more often than adults (Mann-Whitney U, p0.05, Wilcoxon p>0.05). These results provide evidence that AMC in C. guereza gives lactating mothers the opportunity to replenish energy through feeding and resting without clinging infants.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.