Environmental & Biodiversity Monitoring

Open habitat chimpanzee study sites are characterised by their extreme seasonality and open, dry, and hot environment (see here). Consequently, we have been actively monitoring the physical environment of the main study area since 2008, with temperature, rain, wind, and humidity loggers deployed across the study area.  These sensors, deployed across vegetation types, reveal not only seasonality differences, but also inter-annual climate patterns . Additionally, phenology transects are walked monthly to monitor leafing and fruiting patterns of over 1000 trees, especially those known to be important feeding species for Issa’s primates. 

One of the Issa weather stations is part of a network covering important conservation regions of the East African Great Lakes region and complements the existing weather station of identical type at the research centre. You can find the dedicated website for the data.