Biomass and use of resources in south and south-east Asian primate communities

Primate habitats in south-east Asia span the two main forest formations of this part of the Oriental region – the deciduous monsoon rainforests of mainland Asia north of the isthmus of Kra and the evergreen rain forests of the “islands” of the Sunda Shelf (Whitmore, 1975). The evergreen rainforests of the Sunda Shelf comprise the main primate habitat, but significant numbers of taxa and individuals occur in the more seasonal forests of mainland Asia, mostly concentrated in pockets of evergreen forest surviving in the moister areas under maritime influence, e.g., Indo-China, Thailand, south India and Sri Lanka, Burma, and Bangladesh (Table 2.1). Intermittent volcanic activity over the last 100 million years has thrown up several arcs of mountains, creating the…