[Babase] Male immigrant questions for Susan

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Wed, 24 Aug 2005 12:23:01 -0400


>Hi Susan,
>
>I have a few questions for you regarding two new immigrant males 
>seen in Viola's group last March.  On 22 March 2005, a young adult 
>male and a young juvenile male were censused as present in the 
>group.  The young adult male was not seen again and was never named. 
>The young juvenile male stayed with Viola's group through early 
>April and was later named Sooty.
>
>The field demography note for Viola's group during this time period read:
>
>22 March 2005: Wabash and a young adult male who is a hybrid are in 
>Viola's group today.  The young adult male is very shy and he is 
>keeping to a distance from the rest of the group but I'm sure it was 
>because of observers.  With him was a young juvenile male the size 
>of EGO and also very shy and following that young adult male 
>wherever he went.  He is probably also from Ositeti and left the 
>group to follow the young male.  He is approximately 3 1/2 years 
>old.  We will give them names if they stay.
>
>25 March 2005: Wabash and the adult male seen on the 22nd of March 
>05 are not with Viola's group today... Also the juvenile male is 
>still present.
>
>28 March 2005: We named the juvenile male in Viola's group Sooty (SOO).
>
>Since the young adult male was never named, I couldn't think of a 
>way include him in the Babase Census and Members tables for the 
>group that day.  Is that ok?


Right, he can't be included even via a demog note.

>
>Also, an official age estimate was never done on SOO.  The only age 
>info we have for him comes from the first field demography note 
>quoted above - the team confirmed that no other age info was 
>collected.  Jeanne suggested I check the reference to EGO's age... 
>EGO was born 25 December 2001 (bstatus = 0), so EGO's age in March 
>2005 is approximately 3 1/4 years.  I thought this coincided well 
>with the team's estimate that SOO is about 3 1/2 years.


For juveniles, we don't do age estimates the same way we do with 
adults -- we don't fill out that form. Instead we age them by 
comparison with known-age juv males in the study population, as they 
did here.

>
>Do you agree that I should give SOO a birth date of 21 September 
>2001 (making him 3 1/2 years old on 22 March 2005)?


Yes.

>Also, what bstatus is appropriate?

Give it a 1. Age estimates by comparison with known juvs are pretty 
good, will generally be to within a year unless they make a specific 
note about it.

Susan
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Susan Alberts, Associate Professor 
Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham NC 27708 
phone 919-660-7272  fax 919-660-7293