I am conducting an analysis of the factors that influence the site selection of nests of all of the great apes, therefore I would greatly appreciate any advice on where I can find some data sets on this topic. Some of the factors I intend to look at include tree species, height of lowest branch from ground level, height of nest from ground level, distance from nearest food and water sources and direction of travel before and after nesting. Thanks for any help in advance!
I don't have any data or know of data sets off hand, but my PhD supervisor Anne Russon ([email protected]) may have some and would know of others - at least with orangutans. Also you might try contacting people who've done nest censuses to see what other factors they've included in their data sets. I know tree species & height are included in most orangutan censuses. Also, Serge Wich would have this type of info (or know of data sets) for orangutans in Sumatra. http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/NSP/124306.htm or http://sergewich.com/
I know that Andrew Fowler has a data set for the Nigerian chimpanzee, Pan troglogytes ellioti from Gashaka Gumti National Park in Nigeria.
Fowler, A. 2006. Behavioural Ecology of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes vellerosus) at Gashaka, Nigeria. PhD Thesis, University College London.
Also my PhD student Paul Dutton and I have a paper about to be submitted with data from Ngel Nyaki forest reserve in Nigeria (close to Fowler's population but montane).
Perhaps you could use the same data sheets that we did, in order to make comparisons? What apes are you interested in yourself? We certainly asked all the questions you seem interested in and Andrew and Paul used same sheets.
Paul's e mail is [email protected]
I hope this helps
Hazel
Fruth and Hohmann have a chapter "Nest building behavior in great apes: the great leap forward?" in the book Great Ape Societies (Marchant & Nishida, eds.). The chapter contains several tables with data from multiple sites for multiple species of great ape, with a comparison at the end. The data and the references in the chapter should be helpful.
David Samson (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Samson) and Kevin Hunt (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin_Hunt) recently published an article on the structural properties of eastern chimpanzee (P. t. schweinfurthii) nests from Semliki Forest Reserve in Uganda. (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0095361)
This group has also published on the extent to which various characteristics of chimpanzee nests influence parasite exposure. (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-012-0329-z)
Cheers,
Erik
Fiona Stewart, also an ex Cambridge PhD/Postdoc, and now at Liverpool John Moores University, has done research into chimp nests. http://ugallaprimateproject.com/about-the-ugalla-primate-project/people
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