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Field Station in Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand

We operate a field project on Assamese macaques in Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand since 2005 in cooperation with the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP), Kasetsart University and Chulalongkorn Universität in Bangkok. The study site has been established by Andreas Koenig und Carola Borries from Stony Brook University, New York in 2000 and Julia Ostner und Oliver Schülke direct macaque research there since 2005. 

 

The field station is located in Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary in NorthEast Thailand, ca. 500km North of Bangkok in the southern ranges of the mountain range that separates Thailand in the West from Laos in the East. Phu Khieo WS is part of a >6500km² system of connected protected areas, the Western Isaan Forest Complex.

The field station is nestled in the head quarters of the park rangers in the center of the protected area.   

 

The research group maintains to buildings with accommodations, motorbikes for the daily commute to the study area and a car for supply runs.

 

Another two buildings house an office, a lab and a kitchen.

 

Research began in Mai 2025 with the slow habitation of the first study group to the presence of human observers - since 2006 the Assamese macaques are under constant observation. In 2011 habituation of a second group was finished. In the following years, both groups split into two or three subgroups. In October 2024 5 out of the six groups with a total of 299 individuals were under observation. 

 

The home ranges of the study groups are hugely overlapping and are shown here on a map of the marked trail system. 

 

In October 2024 we had a total of 561 individuals in our life history data base where we log births, maturation, deaths and migration events. 

DNA from fecal samples has been obtained for nearly all of the individuals from which we slowly generate a multi-generational pedigree. 

On 20.25ha of botanical plots we identified, mapped and measured all trees <10cm and all lianas >5cm dbh. 

Since 2007 we quantify every month the abundance of all phytophases on >650 trees in spread across the study area. 

We store many thousands of urine and fecal samples of individually known monkeys from which we quantify the gut microbiota, hormone metabolites, immune- and metabolic markers. 

The behavior data base is supplied with focal animal data on adult and an increasingly also immature individuals.

We use photogrammetric methods to quantify growth. 

We work to establish computer vision models for behavioral analysis from videos shot under natural conditions.