Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Biology

Degree Program

Biology, PhD

Committee Chair

Eason, Perri

Committee Member

Yanoviak, Stephen

Committee Member

Pigg, Rachel

Committee Member

Emery, Sarah

Committee Member

Sheeran, Lori

Author's Keywords

Chlorocebus; communication; play; primates

Abstract

Green monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeaus) arrived to the Caribbean with the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Since then, they have experienced unique environments to those of their native ranges in West Africa. Additionally, recent taxonomic changes within the genus make previous knowledge about the species hard to determine to be accurate. In this dissertation, I both assess some of the effects the island environment may have had on monkey behavior as well as build on the understanding of their vocal communication across three islands: Barbados, St. Kitts, and St. Martin. In chapter one, I investigate how human activity in Barbados affects the play behavior of green monkeys. Using a scale for play intensity, I found that increasing anthropogenic food provision was correlated with a decline in play intensity. Similar patterns of decline in play intensity were also observed with an increase of human-monkey conflict after the Covid-19 pandemic. These findings have implications for long-term survival of primate populations forced to live in human environments. In chapter two, I aimed to identify the specific calls used by green monkeys in Barbados. I compiled a complete vocal repertoire for Barbados green monkeys using RavenPro analysis software and a two-step statistical approach that included a Principle Component Analysis (PCA) followed by a Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance (PERMANOVA). This resulted in the first complete repertoire for Barbados green monkeys and identified 15 unique calls made by adults and subadults and 4 unique calls made by infants. This repertoire serves as the most comprehensive description of vocalizations for the entire species using modern statistical methods. In chapter three, I compare the vocal repertoire of monkeys on Barbados to monkey vocalizations collected from St. Kitts and St. Martin using a similar two-step analysis as described in chapter two. While most calls were quantitatively consistent among islands, I still found some variation across islands. I attribute these differences in part to the differing social dynamics across islands as well as differing levels of anthropogenic activity and threat. These findings highlight the multiple factors that potentially affect communication under circumstances of geographic isolation and specifically how these factors contribute to the formation of dialects within green monkey populations. Overall, this research furthered our understanding of how human activity and geographic isolation may influence the social behaviors of green monkeys in the Caribbean. These findings have implications for both primate conservation and evolutionary change as we live in an everchanging world.

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