cr ıpticos y raros a nivel de especie, y para proveer informaci on ecol ogica valiosa a niveles de especie y comunidad.

BackgroundIn Amazonia, primates are not only an important food source but they also hold significant cultural and symbolic value for many indigenous groups. We document the relationship between primates and community members of the Maijuna indigenous community of Sucusari in the Peruvian Amazon and describe how ethnoprimatological studies provide a better understanding of the significance of primates in people’s lives. Additionally, we explore how ethnoprimatological studies can help inform and enhance primate conservation initiatives.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 50 residents of the community of Sucusari to assess the classification, cultural significance and traditional uses, beliefs, ceremonies and stories of primates within the Sucusari River basin.ResultsPrimates play an important role in the lives of individuals in the Sucusari community. They are distinguished by their arboreal lifestyle, and among the 11 species reported in the area, seven (Lagothrix lagotricha, Alouatta seniculus, Pithecia monachus, Callicebus spp., Saimiri sciureus, Leontocebus nigricollis) are highly recognized and culturally salient. Primates are used as food, medicine, pets, domestic tools and in the production of handicrafts. They are primarily hunted for local consumption, with larger primates such as L. lagotricha being preferred. Lagothrix lagotricha was also the most commonly reported pet species and the only observed pet primate in the community during surveys. Maijuna traditional beliefs include ancestral dietary taboos for A. seniculus, which are referred to as sorcerer monkeys, but this taboo is no longer fully adhered to. Maijuna traditional stories associated with primates describe the origin of primates found in Sucusari.ConclusionPrimates are embedded in the intricate sociocultural system of the community of Sucusari. Better understanding the relationship between primates and people can help to focus conservation efforts on primate species of particularly high sociocultural importance as well as ecological value, such as L. lagotricha. We highly recommend the inclusion of ethnoprimatological studies into primate conservation initiatives to accomplish more effective conservation planning, ultimately integrating the goals of biodiversity conservation with the cultural and economic needs of indigenous and local communities.

The Amazon region has been viewed as a source of economic growth based on extractive industry and large-scale infrastructure development endeavors, such as roads, dams, oil and gas pipelines and mining. International and national policies advocating for the development of the Amazon often conflict with the environmental sector tasked with conserving its unique ecosystems and peoples through a sustainable development agenda. New practices of environmental governance can help mitigate adverse socio-economic and ecological effects. For example, forming a “community of practice and learning” (CoP-L) is an approach for improving governance via collaboration and knowledge exchange. The Governance and Infrastructure in the Amazon (GIA) project, in which this study is embedded, has proposed that fostering a CoP-L on tools and strategies to improve infrastructure governance can serve as a mechanism to promote learning and action on factors related to governance effectiveness. A particular tool used by the GIA project for generating and sharing knowledge has been participatory mapping (Pmap). This study analyzes Pmap exercises conducted through workshops in four different Amazonian regions. The goal of Pmap was to capture different perspectives from stakeholders based on their experiences and interests to visualize and reflect on (1) areas of value, (2) areas of concern and (3) recommended actions related to reducing impacts of infrastructure development and improvement of governance processes. We used a mixed-methods approach to explore textual analysis, regional multi-iteration discussion with stakeholders, participatory mapping and integration with ancillary geospatial datasets. We believe that by sharing local-knowledge-driven data and strengthening multi-actor dialogue and collaboration, this novel approach can improve day to day practices of CoP-L members and, therefore, the transparency of infrastructure planning and good governance.

Recent reductions in the size and cost of autonomous data collection equipment have allowed ecologists to better and more efficiently survey their study sites (Acevedo & Villanueva-Rivera, 2006). Much work has been done to examine the benefits of using camera trap networks to detect shy and retiring species whose detection probabilities greatly decrease in the presence of human researchers (O'Connell et al., 2010). However, many species for which remote surveying techniques are optimal are difficult to properly monitor with camera traps due to their small body sizes and/or preference for heavy vegetative cover (Newey et al., 2015). A number of these species, particularly interior forest birds, are much easier to detect via acoustic monitoring techniques due to their frequent, far-carrying vocalizations, and battery-operated automated recording units (ARUs) have recently become a cost-effective option for researchers

1. The use of machine learning technologies to process large quantities of remotely-collected audio data is a powerful emerging research tool in ecology and conservation. 2. We applied these methods to a field study of tinamou (Tinamidae) biology in Madre de Dios, Peru, a region expected to have high levels of interspecies competition and niche partitioning as a result of high tinamou alpha diversity. We used autonomous recording units to gather environmental audio over a period of several months at lowland rainforest sites in the Los Amigos Conservation Concession and developed a Convolutional Neural Network-based data processing pipeline to detect tinamou vocalizations in the dataset. 3. The classified acoustic event data are comparable to similar metrics derived from an ongoing camera trapping survey at the same site, and it should be possible to combine the two datasets for future explorations of the target species’ niche space parameters. 4. Here we provide an overview of the methodology used in the data collection and processing pipeline, offer general suggestions for processing large amounts of environmental audio data, and demonstrate how data collected in this manner can be used to answer questions about bird biology.