Seasonality as a Mediator of Range Use and Feeding Behavior on the Parasite Richness of the Saddleback Tamarins

This study aims to investigate which intestinal parasites are found in the Peruvian Amazon’s tamarins and how seasonality influences parasite richness and prevalence. Previous studies have shown a positive trend between moist environments and numbers of intestinal parasite. The mantled howler monkeys of Costa Rica living in La Selva, a wetter habitat, had greater intestinal parasite infections than their counterparts at La Pacifica, a drier habitat. Unlike howler monkeys, tamarins are smaller primates and must engage in a foraging strategy called traplining that requires them to gather small amounts of food in many places along a long route. Tamarins have large home ranges, between 30 to 120 hectares, relative to their body size. Peruvian seasonal changes may inhibit range use and feeding ecologies. It can affect what vegetation is available and the density of insects found in a given habitat. This study focuses on the degree to which seasonality mediates the relationships between feeding behavior and parasite richness found in saddleback tamarins in the Los Amigos Field Site in Puerto Maldonado, Peru. Fecal samples will be collected in collaboration with Field Projects International from the populations, n=4, and labeled with their individual ID number, sex, approximate age, date of collection, time of collection, and collector. I will follow groups of tamarins noting the feeding behaviors along with their global positioning system (GPS) coordinates. Fecal samples will be collected, read, and analyzed using fecal flotation, fecal sedimentation, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in the Parker Lab in the University of Missouri-St. Louis