Does habitat protection status matter? Insights from a tropical primate community in Northeast Bangladesh.

Protected areas are central to primate conservation worldwide, yet the contribution of adjacent non-protected forests remains poorly understood. We conducted the first systematic assessment of primate communities across the Tarap Hill Reserve Forest, Northeast Bangladesh, to compare primate communities between its formally protected and non-protected forest parts. We surveyed 147.32 km of diurnal and 100.34 km of nocturnal transects, recording 48 clusters of five diurnal primate species and 20 individual Bengal slow lorises. Western hoolock gibbon found only in protected forests, Northern pig-tailed macaque only in non-protected forests, whereas the remaining species were recorded in both. Relative density estimates varied among species, but forest protection status did not significantly influence overall primate encounter rates or species-specific cluster sizes. These findings highlight species-specific patterns associated with habitat protection status and may indicate the complementary conservation value of both protected and adjacent non-protected forests. Integrated management of both should therefore be important for sustaining primate populations and other wildlife in such fragmented landscapes.