Narrow riparian woodlands along non-perennial streams have made it possible for vervet monkeys to penetrate the semi-arid karoo ecosystem of South Africa, whilst artificial water points have more recently allowed these populations to colonize much more marginal habitat away from natural water sources. In order to better understand the sequelae of life in these narrow, linear woodlands for historically ‘natural’ populations and to test the prediction that they are ecologically stressed, we determined the size of troops in relation to their reliance on natural and artificial water sources and collected detailed data from two river-centred troops on activity, diet and ranging behaviour over an annual cycle. In comparison to other populations, our data indicate that river-centred troops in the karoo were distinctive primarily both for their large group sizes and, consequently, their large adult cohorts, and in the extent of home range overlap in what is regarded as a territorial species. Whilst large group size carried the corollary of increased day journey length and longer estimated interbirth intervals, there was little other indication of the effects of ecological stress on factors such as body weight and foraging effort. We argue that this was a consequence of the high density of Acacia karroo, which accounted for a third of annual foraging effort in what was a relatively depauperate floristic habitat. We ascribed the large group size and home range overlap to constraints on group fission.Conservation implications: The distribution of group sizes, sampled appropriately across habitats within a conservation area, will be of more relevance to management than average values, which may be nothing more than a statistical artefact, especially when troop sizes are bimodally distributed.

In many countries, dental services, unlike other health-care services, are not covered by the principle of universal access. It is only in the last couple of decades that there has been a greater interaction between medicine and dentistry. Various health-care systems worldwide may provide public dental services to the young and the disadvantaged, but few provide access to all. Public policy does not appear to appreciate the vast economic, health and social implications of poor oral health on the overall health of an individual. Recognizing and acting on the interrelatedness between oral health and overall health helps to protect patients from pathological diseases, such as infective endocarditis, suboptimal glycemic control and deterioration in renal function. This review article examines some of the medical conditions to which patients are predisposed as a result of poor dental care. Additionally, the paper provides some real-life case examples to support this hypothesis, reinforces the importance of a strong relationship that needs to be embedded between the dentist and the physician and finally provides some suggestions for a multidisciplinary approach.

We used data from two troops of free-ranging vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) to assess the proposition that the conspicuous chest rubbing observed in this species constitutes scent-marking behavior. Our data indicate that chest-rubbing behavior is associated with higher-ranking males who are more likely to do so during the breeding season in areas where territorial encounters occur. We found no indication that chest rubbing was triggered directly by encounters between troops. We conclude that these data, in conjunction with reports of chest rubbing from other Old World monkeys, are sufficiently suggestive of scent marking to warrant further, directed research and support the suspicion that olfactory cues remain important to catarrhines in a number of domains.