Impact of habitat degradation in northern pigtailed macaques (Macaca leonina) sleeping site selection pattern

Primates spend half of their lives at sleeping sites and should select them carefully. Macaques usually use about thirty sleeping sites and their selection respond primarily to predation avoidance. We studied a northern pigtailed macaques troop sleeping sites selection pattern in a degraded forest fragment, the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve in Thailand. We identified 107 sleeping sites with only 15 reused sites selected at random. Using resource selection function, we found that macaques sleeping site selection is best explained by proximity to feeding areas. Preliminary study of habitat characteristic suggests that there is no structural difference between selected and available sleeping trees in the troop home range. In degraded habitat where forest structure does not offer optimal sleeping trees against predators and with scattered fruit tree distribution, macaques seem to favor strategy based on food resources proximity. These results highlight impact of habitat degradation may have on sleeping site selection in a flexible species.