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The feeding behaviour of one troop of red colobus ( Colobus badius tephrosceles) was observed between August 1969 and June 1970 in the Gombe National Park. Similar observations were made on two troops of red colobus and two of black and white colobus (C. guereza uellensis) in Kibale Forest Reserve, Uganda, between August and October 1970. The red colobus at Gombe were highly selective in their choice of food, feeding on the leaves, shoots, flowers and fruit of a wide variety of tree species. The animals appeared to choose a varied diet, eating different foods in different feeding bouts on the same day. The amount of time which they spent feeding on different foods varied seasonally, usually in association with changes in food availability. Different parts of the animals' range provided them with different kinds of food. The feeding behaviour of the red colobus troops at Kibale was similar to that of the Gombe troop. In contrast, black and white colobus at Kibale fed almost exclusively on mature leaves during at least one period of the year and fed largely on two tree species only. These differences in feeding behaviour may explain why red colobus live in large troops in large ranges while black and white colobus live in small troops in small ranges.
Group-living primates and other animals use postaggression (PA) behavioural strategies to reduce the social costs of aggression. However, the relative frequency with which individuals use these conflict management strategies is unclear in many species, and functional analyses of these behaviours are rare. We observed aggression by dominant individuals against group members in cooperatively breeding meerkats, Suricata suricatta, and examined the incidents and effects of PA affiliation between the opponents (reconciliation), avoidance and submission. Aggression had a negative effect on the social relationship between opponents because of an elevated probability of aggression occurrence and an increased time interval until the first nonagonistic PA encounter compared to nonagonistic (control) encounters. The probability of aggression reoccurrence did not decrease with increasing time interval until the first PA encounter, indicating that aggression had long-lasting negative effects on social relationships. Evidence of reconciliation following aggression was not confirmed in this species. Avoidance and submission by the victim characterized the social behaviour following aggression. Although avoidance by victims in the first PA encounter reduced the probability of aggression reoccurrence, submission during aggression neither reduced the probability of aggression reoccurrence nor shortened the time interval until the first PA encounter. These results suggest that avoidance is the only behavioural option for victims of aggression to deal with PA hostility. Reconciliation and other forms of conflict management may be more important in species with low reproductive skew and with opportunities for negotiating relationships between group members than in despotic singular cooperative breeders.
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