However, monitoring chimpanzee population size is inherently difficult, and few studies have demonstrated clear links between habitat variation and conservation value. For chimpanzees, key requirements such as food and nesting materials are sensitive to environmental variation, including climate change and other anthropogenic factors such as habitat conversion and poaching. Understanding the relationship between each great ape species and its environment is therefore crucial for developing conservation policy. Great ape populations are currently threatened by hunting, habitat loss and infectious diseases. Further studies need to be focused on nest decay rates and phenology of useful plants in order to model chimpanzee abundance and distribution in Mbam-Djerem National Park. However, we found that habitat features, slope and altitude likely play a role in shaping patterns of chimpanzee nesting ecology. Our estimates of chimpanzee densities were lower than reported in other studied populations in the range of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee. Nest abundance varied with vegetation type and was higher in areas with dense canopy cover, steeper slopes and relatively higher altitudes. Chimpanzee density was 0.88 individuals/km 2 in the dense forest and 0.59 in the forest-savannah mosaic. Of these, 119 nests along 68 km occurred in dense forest and 130 nests along 64 km in forest-savannah mosaic. We counted 249 nests along 132 km of transects in total. The habitat variation in chimpanzees is poorly understood in MDNP which provides an excellent opportunity to assess ecological factors that shape the abundance and distribution patterns of P. The chimpanzee Pan troglodytes ellioti is endemic to Nigeria and Cameroon, and occupies an ecologically diverse range of habitats from forests to forest-savannah mosaic in Mbam-Djerem National Park (MDNP) in Cameroon. Understanding the relationship between great apes and their habitat is essential for the development of successful conservation strategies.
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