Browsing by Author "Jacob, P."
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Item Primates decline rapidly in unprotected forests: Evidence from a monitoring program with data constraints(PLOS ONE, 2015-02) Rovero, F.; Mtui, A.; Kitegile, A.; Jacob, P.; Araldi, A.; Tenan, S.Growing threats to primates in tropical forests make robust and long-term population abundance assessments increasingly important for conservation. Concomitantly, monitoring becomes particularly relevant in countries with primate habitat. Yet monitoring schemes in these countries often suffer from logistic constraints and/or poor rigor in data collection, and a lack of consideration of sources of bias in analysis. To address the need for feasible monitoring schemes and flexible analytical tools for robust trend estimates, we analyzed data collected by local technicians on abundance of three species of arboreal monkey in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania (two Colobus species and one Cercopithecus), an area of international importance for primate endemism and conservation. We counted primate social groups along eight line transects in two forest blocks in the area, one protected and one unprotected, over a span of 11 years. We applied a recently proposed open metapopulation model to estimate abundance trends while controlling for confounding effects of observer, site, and season. Primate populations were stable in the protected forest, while the colobines, including the endemic Udzungwa red colobus, declined severely in the unprotected forest. Targeted hunting pressure at this second site is the most plausible explanation for the trend observed. The unexplained variability in detection probability among transects was greater than the variability due to observers, indicating consistency in data collection among observers. There were no significant differences in both primate abundance and detectability between wet and dry seasons, supporting the choice of sampling during the dry season only based on minimizing practical constraints. Results show that simple monitoring routines implemented by trained local technicians can effectively detect changes in primate populations in tropical countries. The hierarchical Bayesian model formulation adopted provides a flexible tool to determine temporal trends with full account for any imbalance in the data set and for imperfect detection.Item Rural women accessibility to water resources and their resilience to the resources variability: case study of Muheza District, Tanga Region(Sokoine University of Agriculture, 2018) Jacob, P.The geographic location, landscape nature and hydrology make Muheza District the base catchment for Tanga, Korogwe, Pangani and Handeni Districts. Considering this, the study on how rural women in the face of climate change and anthropogenic activities on one hand, and national water policies and the Millennium Goals on the other, access water resources and manage its variability was executed. The district was represented by five purposefully selected villages namely, Kwelumbizi, Kizerui, Misalai, Kazita and Mgambo during the study conducted from December 2017 to April 2018. The study used Escherichia coli and total coliform as biological indicators of water quality whereas pH, and total dissolved solids and temperature were used as chemical and physical indicators of water quality, respectively. Biological data were collected by growing both Escherichia coli and total coliform from 216 water samples in the Incubator dgtl w/auto for twelve hours under 3MTMPetrifilmTM coliform count plates subjected to 440C and 370C, respectively. Colonies grown were counted by VHX Digital Microscope while pH was measured using digital ODM pH meter, and total dissolved solids measured using Mettler Toledo's TDS meter. The social aspects were collected using a combination of three techniques: questionnaire surveys, interview with key informants and focus group discussions. The findings indicated that communities face a number of constraints related to water collection especially during dry seasons, including low quality water as exhibited by unacceptable levels of coliform bacteria and pH level for acidic water. This study underscores the fact that sustainable utilization of water resources in Muheza Rural District is necessary as its hydrology is vital to the neighboring districts in Tanga Region and Tanga Municipality. Conducting another study to assess whether communities may have been affected by the coliform bacteria and whether the acidic water could have or may affect community healthy in the future is recommended.