Population Recovery of Nicobar Long-Tailed Macaque Macaca fascicularis umbrosus following a Tsunami in the Nicobar Islands, India

摘要: Natural disasters pose a threat to isolated populations of species with restricted distributions, especially those inhabiting islands. The Nicobar long tailed macaque.Macaca fascicularis umbrosus, is one such found in the three southernmost islands (viz. Great Nicobar, Little and Katchal) Andaman archipelago, India. These were hit by massive tsunami (Indian Ocean tsunami, 26 December 2004) after 9.2 magnitude earthquake. Earlier studies [Umapathy et al. 2003; Sivakumar, 2004] reported sharp decline population M. f. umbrosus thetsunami. We studied distribution status on thethree Islands compared our results previous studies. carried out trail surveys existing paths trails get encounter rate as measure abundance. also checked degree inundation due using Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) landsat imageries study area before tsunami. Theencounter groups per kilometre Katchal was 0.30, 0.35 0.48 respectively mean group size 39 43 following This higher than that two earlier conducted Post there significant change proportion adult males, females immatures, but did not differ pre show has recovered from drastic caused it cannot be ascertained whether reached stability because altered structure. demonstrates effect natural island occurring species.