Primate response to natural gas pipeline construction in the Peruvian Amazon

Abstract

While natural resource exploration and extraction activity is expanding in the Neotropics, our understanding of wildlife response to such activity is almost non-existent. Primates, which fulfill important ecological roles and face numerous anthropogenic threats, are of particular concern. We studied primate group distribution before, during, and after natural gas pipeline construction in the Peruvian Amazon to investigate whether primates spatially avoid areas of disturbance. We monitored primates on eight transects 20 times per annual sampling period in three consecutive years and analyzed changes in group observations relative to the pipeline right-of-way in a multi-season occupancy modeling framework. Overall primate group encounter rates were low (