Use of Space by black-and-gold howler monkeys (Alouatta caraya) in an urban environment in Paraguay

Abstract

As urbanisation continues to reduce the available habitat for wildlife, some species, including the black-and-gold howler monkey (Alouatta caraya) in Pilar, southwest Paraguay, are making their homes in anthropogenic environments. Understanding an animal’s home range is an important step to understanding its ecological needs, and an essential requirement for the creation of robust conservation plans. In this study, we determined the home ranges and core areas of five groups of urban dwelling A. caraya using Minimum Convex Polygon (MCP) and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) Analysis. We used a Spearman’s Correlation to explore the relationship between home range size and group size. All five groups had home ranges of less than 10 ha and used core areas of less than 1 ha. Group size had no significant relationship to home range size. We provide the first estimates of home range for A. caraya in an urban environment in Paraguay. Though the home ranges of the urban A. caraya in Pilar, Paraguay fall at the smaller end of the spectrum of range sizes in Alouatta, they are not abnormal for a species in this genus.