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To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00510.x Byline: DANIEL C. NEPSTAD (*[dagger][double dagger]**), CLAUDIA M. STICKLER ([dagger]s.), ORIANA T. ALMEIDA ([dagger]) Keywords: conservation policy; deforestation; green certification; hoof-and-mouth disease; soy; beef markets; tropical conservation Abstract: Abstract: Amazon beef and soybean industries, the primary drivers of Amazon deforestation, are increasingly responsive to economic signals emanating from around the world, such as those associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, 'mad cow disease') outbreaks and China's economic growth. The expanding role of these economic 'teleconnections' (coupled phenomena that take place in distant places on the planet) led to a 3-year period (2002-2004) of historically high deforestation rates. But it also increases the potential for large-scale conservation in the region as markets and finance institutions demand better environmental and social performance of beef and soy producers. Cattle ranchers and soy farmers who have generally opposed ambitious government regulations that require forest reserves on private property are realizing that good land stewardship-including compliance with legislation-may increase their access to expanding domestic and international markets and to credit and lower the risk of 'losing' their land to agrarian reform. The realization of this potential depends on the successful negotiation of social and environmental performance criteria and an associated system of certification that are acceptable to both the industries and civil society. The foot-and-mouth eradication system, in which geographic zones win permission to export beef, may provide an important model for the design of a low-cost, peer-enforced, socioenvironmental certification system that becomes the mechanism by which beef and soy industries gain access to markets outside the Amazon. Abstract (Spanish): Globalizacion de las Industrias de Soya y Ganado del Amazonas: Oportunidades para la Conservacion Resumen: Las industrias de soya y de ganado en el Amazonas, los principales factores de la deforestacion del Amazonas, estan incrementado su sensibilidad a las senales emanadas de todo el mundo, como las asociadas con brotes de encefalopatia esponjosa bovina (EEB, 'enfermedad de las vacas locas') y el crecimiento economico de China. El creciente papel de estas 'teleconexiones' economicas (combinadas con fenomenos que pudieran ocurrir en sitios distantes sobre el planeta) condujo a un periodo de 3 anos (2002-2004) de tasas de deforestacion historicamente altas. Pero tambien incrementa el potencial para la conservacion a gran escala en la region a medida que los mercados y las instituciones financieras demandan mejor actuacion ambiental y social a los productores de ganado y de soya. Los ganaderos y los productores de soya, que generalmente se han opuesto a las ambiciosas regulaciones del gobierno que requieren reservas forestales en terrenos privados, se estan dando cuenta que un buen uso del suelo-incluyendo el cumplimiento de la legislacion-puede incrementar su acceso a los mercados domesticos e internacionales en expansion, a creditos y a un menor riesgo de 'perder' sus tierras por reformas agrarias. El entendimiento de este potencial depende de la negociacion exitosa de criterios de actuacion social y ambiental y un sistema de certificacion asociado que sean aceptables tanto para la industria como para la sociedad civil. El sistema de erradicacion pies y boca, en el que las zonas geograficas obtienen permisos para exportar ganado, puede proporcionar un modelo importante para el diseno de un sistema de certificacion socioambiental de bajo costo e implementado por pares, que sea el mecanismo mediante el cual las industrias de soya y de ganado obtengan acceso a los mercados fuera del Amazonas. Author Affiliation: (*)Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, MA 02540, U.S.A. ([dagger])Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazonia, Av. Nazare 669, Centro. 66035-170 Belem, PA, Brazil ([double dagger])Nucleo de Altos Estudos Amazonicos, Universidade Federal Do Para (UFPa) Av. Augusto Correa, n[degrees] 01, Campus da Universidade-Guama, CEP 66.059, Belem, Para, Brazil (s.)University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, U.S.A. Article History: Paper submitted April 7, 2005; revised manuscript accepted March 30, 2006. Article note: (**) email dnepstad@whrc.org

We compared the interactions between vigilance, risk from avian predators, and typical group size for three species of squirrel monkey (Saimiri oerstedii, S. boliviensis, and S. sciureus). Field studies of each species in relatively undisturbed habitats provided data including behavioral interactions between avian predators and squirrel monkeys and the latter's vigilance response, habitat use, group size, population density and within-group food competition. Three hypotheses were examined. The first two identified aspects of the habitat structure exploited by squirrel monkeys and their avian predators as key parameters. (1) The overall success of avian attacks is a function of the density of understory vegetation present to hinder these birds from closely approaching individual troop members. (2) The extent of continuous canopy forest cover within habitats underlies which of two vigilance strategies are exhibited. Preemptive vigilance occurs when monkeys allocate time to visual scrutiny in a manner consistent with the intent of obtaining advance warning on the approach of an avian predator. During reactive vigilance, in contrast, monkeys are not overtly vigilant against an aerial attack until an attack or other stimulus strongly indicative of immediate risk occurs. Preemptive vigilance occurs in open habitats with little canopy, while reactive vigilance predominates when birds can make effective ambush attacks from forest canopy cover. Both hypotheses were supported. Group sizes vary significantly across the three squirrel monkey species with S. boliviensis having the largest and S. sciureus the smallest mean group size. Our third hypothesis examined the premise that group size in social animals reflects a tradeoff between predation risk (whether based on long-term observations or extrapolated from habitat structure) and within-group food competition. The power of this tradeoff mechanism to explain group-size variation was contrasted with a simpler, one parameter model, within-group food competition under an ideal free distribution. The ideal free distribution approach was consistent with the observed ranking of group sizes, whereas the tradeoff model provided mixed results. In retrospect, the weakness of the tradeoff model is not surprising. Changes in the risk incurred by individual members of a squirrel monkey troop as a consequence of variation in group size are likely of much smaller magnitude than the risk exposure resulting from local habitat structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]