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[Monkey Cracking Nuts]
[Dr. Patricia Izar] The ethocebus project is an international
collaboration between the University of Sao Paulo, from Brazil
University of Georgia, Athens, in the USA,
and the Institute of Science and Technology of Cognition
from Rome, Italy.
[Caren Remillard] When I worked in a primate behavioral research lab
at Emory, my interests shifted from studying primate behavior
to studying habitat conservation of wild capuchin monkeys.
[Andrea Presotto] I have been combining Geography and Psychology to
understand animal navigation and their relationship with the landscape.
[Steve Padgett-Vasquez] I'm interested in bridging the gap between
scientific research and environmental policy.
Despite the attention placed on the discovery
of tool-use behavior of the bearded capuchin,
behavioral scientists havent' focused on
habitat loss in the savannas of Northeastern Brazil.
After collaborating with Dr. Patricia Izar,
Dr. Dorothy Fragaszy approached the Center for Geospatial Research
in 2009 to help them understand the relationship
between behavior and habitat.
The researchers were interested in what geological factors
influenced anvil placement and were hoping to map the
boundaries of this unique behavior.
Upon joining the NASA DEVELOP program,
CGR saw this partnership as an opportunity
to further their research of the bearded capuchin monkey's habitat.
Through the use of NASA satellite imagery and geospatial techniques,
our project is focused on helping Brazilian primatologists understand
the distribution of suitable habitats for the bearded capuchin and
provide a suitable model of the effects from
human activities on the landscape.
The goal is for the end-users to gain an understanding of the
rate of agricultural expansion and to identify the amount of
land that is healthy and able to maintain capuchin populations
based on our temporal land change analysis of Landsat images.
Utilizing the land change maps,
they will also be able to work with our team to create a
predictable model to investigate how fast the landscape has
transformed around the study area and predict the future
of the land if no action is taken.
Marino and his family are working hard to
preserve this area.
We are in a transition area between two Brazilian ecosystems:
Cerrado and Catinga; and it's an extremely fragile ecosystem.
But now we are facing a more important threat to the
conservation of this area which is the development
of agriculture around the land.
Our regional predictions may guide future exploration
and lead to further behavioral studies of variability
in tool use across the geographical areas.
It will certainly increase the understanding of the impact of
land use change and desertification on capuchin monkey habitats.
And there is always a risk that if the
Cerrado landscape diminishes,
the tool use behavior will cease along with it.
There are often conflicts of interest over
the best way to use land in a sustainable fashion.
This is especially prevalent in this region of Brazil
where land ownership is not well documented.
Our hope, with the contribution of this project's findings,
is to increase the ecological management and conservation
of this valuable area, so that researchers may continue
to study the unique behaviors of these monkeys.
[Monkey Screams]