About This Project

The pied tamarin is a very sensitive and critically endangered primate species. With only a small population left in the wild, maintaining a healthy captive population is a vital conservation strategy. However, in captivity pied tamarins tend to struggle more than other species of tamarin, and this can lead to health problems.

Why is this? My study will focus on the different noises they experience in captive environments and investigate if and how sounds affect them.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

To help any animal cope with captive conditions it is of the highest priority to understand different stressors and their effect on the animal. A start is usually made by trying to recreate the wild settings including enclosure design, diet, etc. However, even with the best efforts the acoustic environment for captive animals will always differ to that of wild ones and therefore is an important factor to consider.

In fact, sound levels at zoos rarely represent those of the natural habitat of animals - often representing a much louder and more irregular environment defined by anthropogenic sounds. For pied tamarins, a small primate that is easily aroused and threatened by many natural predators, a noisy environment most likely represents a potential source of stress.

What is the significance of this project?

The pied tamarin faces many challenges, not only in captivity but also in the wild. It is listed as critically endangered (IUCN) and can only be found in a small, locally restricted area in and around the vicinity of Manaus, Brazil. With such a fragile and declining population left in the wild, it s even more important to conserve this species in captivity.

However, the captive management of the pied tamarin is more difficult than for other species. Their high tendency for an activated stress response seems to cause several health problems, reduced wellbeing, and reduced breeding success. Understanding noise as a potential stressor will help to improve the pied tamarin's captive stress management, welfare and conservation.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of this study is to investigate pied tamarins’ responses to different sounds.

This will be done in a playback experiment in which different sounds (rainforest, visitor voices, construction noises, etc.) will be played to the pied tamarins. Before and after each playback, saliva will be collected form the trained animals to later analyse for cortisol, a hormone that represents the physiological stress levels. In addition, behavioral data will be collected during the playbacks. Together this allows to evaluate the pied tamarins (stress) response to the different sounds and help understand what they perceived as noise.

For more detailed information please see methods.