Baboon and Vervet Monkey Crop-Foraging Behaviors on a Commercial South African Farm: Preliminary Implications for Damage Mitigation

Conflict between crop farmers and wild nonhuman primates is a worldwide conservation issue of increasing concern. Most of the research on wild primate crop foraging has so far focused on the conflicts with subsistence agriculture. Crop damage caused by primate foraging in large-scale commercial agriculture is also a major facet of human–wildlife conflict. Despite its increasing severity, there are very few published accounts of on-farm wild primate crop-foraging behavior or effective techniques to deter primates from field crops on commercial farms. To address this knowledge gap and identify some mitigation strategies, we used direct observation from a hide to collect behaviors and interspecific interactions between chacma baboons (Papio ursinus; baboons) and vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus; vervets) foraging in a 1-ha butternut squash (Cucurbita moschata) field for 4 months (May to August) in 2013 on a 564-ha commercial farm in the Blouberg District of South Africa. Baboons caused the most crop damage, foraged on crops more in the mornings, and their rates of crop foraging were influenced primarily by natural vegetation productivity. Vervet monkey rates of crop foraging were primarily influenced by the presence of baboons. When baboons or vervets visited the farm, half of the visits did not involve crop foraging, and vervets were more likely to crop forage when they visited than baboons. Based on this preliminary study, we make recommendations for crop farmers to improve the effectiveness of current deterrent methods. These include increasing deterrent efforts when natural vegetation drops below a normalized difference vegetation index value of 0.32, especially during the hours before midday, chasing baboons and vervets farther from the farm rather than just out of crop fields, and increasing the perceived mortality risk of field guards. These recommendations should be evaluated to determine effectiveness before being adopted on a wider scale

Field Guarding as a Crop Protection Method: Preliminary Implications for Improving Field Guarding

Negative interactions between crop farmers and wild primates are an issue of significant concern. Despite many crop farmers using field guards as a method of crop protection against foraging primates, there are very few published accounts of how effective this technique is and how it might be improved. To bridge this knowledge gap, we used direct observations from a hide to collect the behaviors of field guards, chacma baboons (Papio ursinus; baboons), and vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus; vervets) foraging in a 1-ha butternut squash (Cucurbita moschata) field for 4 months (May to August) in 2013 on a 564-ha commercial farm in the Blouberg District of South Africa. Only half of the crop-foraging events were chased by field guards, with vervets being chased much less frequently than baboons. Guards responded more often to events with greater primate numbers and to those that occurred earlier in the day. Guard delay in responding to crop-foraging events and baboon delay in responding to the guard both increased in the low productivity season. Baboon response delay also increased with more animals involved. Based on this case study, we suggest recommendations to improve the effectiveness of field guarding. This includes implementing an early warning alarm system, shortening field guard shifts, increasing guard numbers during the morning and low productivity season, and increasing the perceived fear of field guards, potentially by employing male guards or providing uniforms and deterrent accessories. Further evaluation in other local contexts will help determine how these findings can be adopted on a wider scale

On-primate cameras reveal undocumented foraging behaviour and interspecies interactions in chacma baboons (Papio ursinus)

Historically, direct observation by human observers has been the primary method for studying primate behaviour. However, human observation may alter the behaviour of even habituated primates and that of other animals in their environment (LaBarge et al., 2020). Observers may miss rare or subtle behaviours, particularly if maintaining recommended observation distances (Moll et al., 2007). Remote methods, including on-animal cameras, can overcome some of these limitations.Cameras have been deployed on a range of animals to study behaviour, although primarily on larger-bodied species. However, the use of cameras on primates has been limited (Fuentes et al., 2014). Yet on-animal cameras have the potential to reveal important aspects of primate behaviour from a “primate-eye perspective”, with cameras collecting data continuously, close-up, and at high resolution. The method thus has the potential to give exciting and novel insights into primate behaviour.We deployed custom-made, high-resolution, primate-borne video cameras on chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) in South Africa to gain insights into their behaviour and foraging in an agricultural landscape and to illustrate the potential advantages of this method, with a focus on undocumented foraging behaviours and interspecific interactions. Chacma baboons are omnivorous and occasionally prey on small antelope. Their flexible diets also may incorporate alternative anthropogenic food resources from agricultural areas (Walton et al., 2021). Although previously studied by using bio-loggers (Walton et al., 2021), these were without integrated video recording

Insights into short‐ and long‐term crop‐foraging strategies in a chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) from GPS and accelerometer data

Crop‐foraging by animals is a leading cause of human–wildlife “conflict” globally, affecting farmers and resulting in the death of many animals in retaliation, including primates. Despite significant research into crop‐foraging by primates, relatively little is understood about the behavior and movements of primates in and around crop fields, largely due to the limitations of traditional observational methods. Crop‐foraging by primates in large‐scale agriculture has also received little attention. We used GPS and accelerometer bio‐loggers, along with environmental data, to gain an understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of activity for a female in a crop‐foraging baboon group in and around commercial farms in South Africa over one year. Crop fields were avoided for most of the year, suggesting that fields are perceived as a high‐risk habitat. When field visits did occur, this was generally when plant primary productivity was low, suggesting that crops were a “fallback food”. All recorded field visits were at or before 15:00. Activity was significantly higher in crop fields than in the landscape in general, evidence that crop‐foraging is an energetically costly strategy and that fields are perceived as a risky habitat. In contrast, activity was significantly lower within 100 m of the field edge than in the rest of the landscape, suggesting that baboons wait near the field edge to assess risks before crop‐foraging. Together, this understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of crop‐foraging can help to inform crop protection strategies and reduce conflict between humans and baboons in South Africa

Effects of eight neuropsychiatric copy number variants on human brain structure

Many copy number variants (CNVs) confer risk for the same range of neurodevelopmental symptoms and psychiatric conditions including autism and schizophrenia. Yet, to date neuroimaging studies have typically been carried out one mutation at a time, showing that CNVs have large effects on brain anatomy. Here, we aimed to characterize and quantify the distinct brain morphometry effects and latent dimensions across 8 neuropsychiatric CNVs. We analyzed T1-weighted MRI data from clinically and non-clinically ascertained CNV carriers (deletion/duplication) at the 1q21.1 (n = 39/28), 16p11.2 (n = 87/78), 22q11.2 (n = 75/30), and 15q11.2 (n = 72/76) loci as well as 1296 non-carriers (controls). Case-control contrasts of all examined genomic loci demonstrated effects on brain anatomy, with deletions and duplications showing mirror effects at the global and regional levels. Although CNVs mainly showed distinct brain patterns, principal component analysis (PCA) loaded subsets of CNVs on two latent brain dimensions, which explained 32 and 29% of the variance of the 8 Cohen’s d maps. The cingulate gyrus, insula, supplementary motor cortex, and cerebellum were identified by PCA and multi-view pattern learning as top regions contributing to latent dimension shared across subsets of CNVs. The large proportion of distinct CNV effects on brain morphology may explain the small neuroimaging effect sizes reported in polygenic psychiatric conditions. Nevertheless, latent gene brain morphology dimensions will help subgroup the rapidly expanding landscape of neuropsychiatric variants and dissect the heterogeneity of idiopathic conditions

PANC Study (Pancreatitis: A National Cohort Study): national cohort study examining the first 30 days from presentation of acute pancreatitis in the UK

Abstract Background Acute pancreatitis is a common, yet complex, emergency surgical presentation. Multiple guidelines exist and management can vary significantly. The aim of this first UK, multicentre, prospective cohort study was to assess the variation in management of acute pancreatitis to guide resource planning and optimize treatment. Methods All patients aged greater than or equal to 18 years presenting with acute pancreatitis, as per the Atlanta criteria, from March to April 2021 were eligible for inclusion and followed up for 30 days. Anonymized data were uploaded to a secure electronic database in line with local governance approvals. Results A total of 113 hospitals contributed data on 2580 patients, with an equal sex distribution and a mean age of 57 years. The aetiology was gallstones in 50.6 per cent, with idiopathic the next most common (22.4 per cent). In addition to the 7.6 per cent with a diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis, 20.1 per cent of patients had a previous episode of acute pancreatitis. One in 20 patients were classed as having severe pancreatitis, as per the Atlanta criteria. The overall mortality rate was 2.3 per cent at 30 days, but rose to one in three in the severe group. Predictors of death included male sex, increased age, and frailty; previous acute pancreatitis and gallstones as aetiologies were protective. Smoking status and body mass index did not affect death. Conclusion Most patients presenting with acute pancreatitis have a mild, self-limiting disease. Rates of patients with idiopathic pancreatitis are high. Recurrent attacks of pancreatitis are common, but are likely to have reduced risk of death on subsequent admissions. </jats:sec

Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys

The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (http://legacysurvey.org/) are a combination of three public projects (the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey, the Beijing–Arizona Sky Survey, and the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey) that will jointly image ≈14,000 deg2 of the extragalactic sky visible from the northern hemisphere in three optical bands (g, r, and z) using telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The combined survey footprint is split into two contiguous areas by the Galactic plane. The optical imaging is conducted using a unique strategy of dynamically adjusting the exposure times and pointing selection during observing that results in a survey of nearly uniform depth. In addition to calibrated images, the project is delivering a catalog, constructed by using a probabilistic inference-based approach to estimate source shapes and brightnesses. The catalog includes photometry from the grz optical bands and from four mid-infrared bands (at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 μm) observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite during its full operational lifetime. The project plans two public data releases each year. All the software used to generate the catalogs is also released with the data. This paper provides an overview of the Legacy Surveys project