EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021

(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)

5/26/2021 | 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM | Snow monkeys feed on riverine organisms | Virtual Platform

Snow monkeys feed on riverine organisms

The snow monkey (Macaca fuscata), native to the main islands of Japan, is the most northerly living non-human primate. In Kamikochi, our study area, snow monkeys live in one of the coldest areas of the world (winter -20-30 ° C and deep snowfall). Winter is a potential bottleneck season for food availability and snow monkeys can experience energy crises. We collected 38 fresh snow monkey winter faeces samples from 2017 to 2019 where e-DNA was extracted and sequences compared to the GenBank database. One species of freshwater fish Salmo trutta (the brown trout) was clearly identified with 100% sequence similarity. Two freshwater mollusc species present (Potamopyrgus antipodarum and Semisulcospira dolorosa) and five genera of insects were also detected, two being stoneflies (Nemoura fluva and Sweltsa sp). Snow monkeys utilize stream fauna to overwinter because they are unable to migrate across the steep mountains in mid-winter (>2500m of elevation) and an abundance of groundwater upwellings and active volcanoes ensure many streams are flowing allowing access to the monkeys for this food source. This is the first evidence of snow monkeys eating freshwater fauna.

Food webs
Stream
Vertebrates

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Presenters/Authors

Alexander Milner (), University of Birmingham, a.m.milner@bham.ac.uk;