Barros, Mariano (Biologist, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Mariano Barros, is a Biologist from the University of Buenos Aires who works at the Buenos Aires Zoo.  He has recently joined the team to contribute his expertise on Conservation Education, as well as his general training in biology.

Iriart, David (Botanist, University of the Northeast, Corrientes, Argentina)

David is a Botanist from the University of the Northeast, who has been in charge of monitoring the trees and collecting specimens for the project's herbarium since 2003.   He is responsible for the long-term monthly phenological data collected since 2003.  During the first half of 2007, he was in charge of conducting a survey of the forest as part of an on-going NSF project.  Thanks to his work, we have now a database that includes information on tree DBH, species ID and georeferenced location for almost 13,000 trees in four owl monkey territories.

Rotundo, Marcelo (Fundacion ECO, Formosa, Argentina)

Marcelo arrived in Formosa coming from Resistencia one weekend in May of 1997.  At the time when I just had a small tent set up for me and my family in the same place where we have had camp since then.  He had worked at the Argentinean Primate Center and wanted to join the still-non-existent Owl Monkey Project. Together we walked along the Riacho Pilagá trying to decide where to study the owl monkeys.  In 1999 he joined the project full time and has been working with me since then.  He has been largely responsible for the successful capturing of over 140 owl monkeys.  Nobody knows the owl monkeys of Guaycolec better than him.  Since 2003, he has also traveled to the other field site where I work in the Ecuadorian Amazon, to collaborate in the capturing of owl monkeys there, as well as sakis, titis and squirrel monkeys. 

Di Fiore, Anthony (Anthropology, New York University)

      I have known Anthony Di Fiore since we were both graduate students at UCDavis.  For many years we dreamed about joining efforts to do research and training in anthropology and primatology together in Latin America.  In 2002 We were awarded an International Collaborative Research Grant by the Wenner-Gren Foundation to initiate a long-term research program to understand the socioecology of monogamy in New World primates.  We began a comparative behavioral and ecological study of three monogamous cebid primates – owl monkeys (Aotus spp.), titi monkeys (Callicebus spp.), and saki monkeys (Pithecia spp.) – at two different study sites in South America, one in the gallery forests of the Argentinean Chaco and one in the Amazon rainforests of Yasuní National Park, Ecuador.  The goal is to evaluate the relative importance of paternal care, food resource distribution, and male and female reproductive strategies in favoring the evolution and maintenance of monogamy in primates.

Erkert, Hans (Tubingen University, Germany)

            My getting to know Hans started in a quite shameful manner.   I was preparing for publication a manuscript describing the activity patterns of owl monkeys based on data I had collected in 1998-1999.  It was only then, in 2001 when I realized going through the literature that Hans had published extensively on the topic.  I contacted him, he contributed his extremely valuable comments to the manuscript and began shaping a study of activity patterns in owl monkeys using accelerometers, these amazing little things that can record automatically the activities of the monkeys. Between 2003-2007 we fitted these collars on 18 different owl monkeys, having collected years of data on them.  We are now in the process of analyzing some of those data.

Gagneux, Pascal  (University of California, San Diego, USA)

I met Pascal during the years that we were both at the San Diego Zoo.  He was largely responsible for conducting some of the preliminary analyses of genetic variation in the owl monkey population.   He was also a great companion in the teaching of some of the field courses I have done.  And he has remained a good friend since then.

Natalia Ceresoli (2004-2009)

Natalia arrived in Formosa in 2002.  During her first year there she collaborated in various aspects of the project.  In 2004 she started her Ph.D. dissertation under the direction  of Dr. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque.  Her research focuses on the ecology and conservation of medium and large-sized mammals in Río Pilcomayo National Park and Copo National Park.  She is currently collaborating with the demographic surveys of owl monkeys in Río Pilcomayo National Park.  She is also a main player in the Conservation Education Program of Fundación ECO.

Juárez, Cecilia (2007-2012)

Cecilia joined the team in 2002 after graduating as a Biologist from the University of Tucumán, and since then has contributed an amazing amount of time and effort to collecting behavioral data from these elusive little creatures.  Cecilia started her Ph.D. research in 2007 with a scholarship from the Argentinean National Council of Research (Conicet).  She will study demography and metapopulation dynamics of owl monkeys in the Argentinean Chaco.

Wolovich, Christy (200x-2007)

Christy recently graduated from the University of Miami in Florida where she completed her dissertation focusing on the social behavior of owl monkeys.. She has done some great behavioral work examining owl monkeys both in the field and in captivity.  Christy first came to the field because she wanted to study food sharing among owl monkeys, a behavior she had observed in captivity.  I told her that I did not think she could have a field season around a behavior we had never observed in years.  She proved me wrong and she went on to produce some fascinating data on how males share food with infants.