The role of Cayo Santiago in primate field studies

Abstract

Cayo Santiago has provided the opportunity to study primate biology in a free-ranging neutral environment free of provocative human influences. Rarely, if ever, does such a situation occur in natural rhesus habitats in Asia. This Cayo Santiago advantage has permitted fine-scale analyses of the details of behavior, ecology, reproduction, genetics, demography, and pathobiology with a greater degree of precision than is possible in the field. At the same time, research on Cayo Santiago has provided valuable baselines for comparative work with natural populations in Asia. Field and laboratory work with the Cayo Santiago colony has produced an impressive number of pioneering studies, from the first investigations of Carpenter in the late 1930's, to the recent demonstrations of Kessler and Rawlins on the demographic role of tetanus in rhesus population ecology and the effectiveness of an inoculation program in eliminating infectious disease. Few, if any, primate colonies have had such a productive interface of naturalistic studies of behavior and ecology with basic biomedical research.