Research on non‐human primates in the endangered tropical dry forest of Sector Santa Rosa (SSR), Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), was launched in 1983 and is now one of the longest running ...studies of primates globally. Such continuous study provides a rare opportunity to ask questions that are only answerable through decades‐long monitoring of these long‐lived monkeys. In turn, the mounting data generated by long‐term study, including knowledge of lifetime reproductive success, familial relatedness, comprehensive behavioral and dietary repertoires, and patterns of inter‐ and intra‐annual variation in forest productivity, provide diverse opportunities to researchers, and facilitate studies that are of shorter duration. Here, we review some of the contributions of our longitudinal research on white‐faced capuchins and Geoffroy's spider monkeys, together with newer studies on mantled howler monkeys. We begin by synthesizing findings from our research on demography, dispersal, social relationships, and reproduction. These life history and social traits interact with their foraging and sensory ecology, which we review next. We end by highlighting how the longitudinal study of primates in Sector Santa Rosa has made direct and indirect contributions to the conservation of the critically endangered dry forest biome and its inhabitants, as well as to education, community, and forest restoration initiatives. In particular, we focus our review on how long‐term research is uniquely positioned to make key contributions spanning different topical areas.
in Spanish is available with online material.
Resumen
El estudio de primates en el bosque tropical seco del Sector Santa Rosa (SSR), Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), Costa Rica, inició en 1983 y se ha convertido en uno de los estudios en primates más largos a nivel mundial. Este estudio continuo ofrece una oportunidad rara de hacer preguntas que sólo se pueden contestar a través de décadas de monitoreo de estos monos de vida larga. A su vez, los datos en constante aumento generados por este estudio de larga duración, como el conocimiento del éxito reproductivo de por vida, la relación familiar, los repertorios conductuales y dietéticos, y los patrones de variación intra e interanual en la productividad del bosque, proporcionan diversas oportunidades a los investigadores y apoyan estudios de menor duración. En este artículo revisamos algunas de las contribuciones de nuestra investigación longitudinal en monos capuchinos de cara blanca y monos arañas de Geoffroy, junto con estudios más recientes en monos aulladores de manto. Comenzamos sintetizando los hallazgos de nuestras investigaciones en demografía, dispersión, relaciones sociales y reproducción. Estos rasgos sociales y de historia de vida interactúan con su ecología sensorial y forrajeo, los cuales revisamos a continuación. Terminamos resaltando cómo el estudio longitudinal de primates en el SSR ha hecho contribuciones directas e indirectas a la conservación del bioma de bosque seco y de sus habitantes, así como a la educación, comunidad, e iniciativas de restauración de este bosque altamente amenazado. En particular, enfocamos esta revisión en cómo investigaciones a largo plazo están en una posición única para hacer contribuciones clave a diferentes áreas del conocimiento.
Long‐term study of capuchin, spider, and howler monkeys in Sector Santa Rosa, ACG, has generated many discoveries about their social lives, ecology, and life histories. Such research continuity provides a rare opportunity to ask questions that are only answerable through decades‐long monitoring of these long‐lived monkeys. Here we review and contextualize some of our research highlights, and comment on how primatology in Santa Rosa has made direct and indirect contributions to the conservation of the critically endangered dry forest biome and its inhabitants, as well as to education, community, and forest restoration initiatives.
Arboreal fauna living in tropical ecosystems may be particularly affected by roads given their dependency on forest cover and the high vulnerability of such ecosystems to changes. Over a period of 4 ...yr, we followed subgroups of spider monkeys living in a regenerating dry tropical forest with 8.2 km of roads within their home range. We aimed to understand whether roads shaped the home range of spider monkeys and which road features affected their movement. Only 18 percent (3 km) of the spider monkeys’home range perimeter bordered with roads; these roads had greater habitat disparity between road sides than roads inside the home range. Although monkeys were reluctant to be close to roads, and roadside habitat contained low proportions of mature forest, spider monkeys crossed roads at 69 locations (7.5 crossings per kilometer). The main road characteristic affecting crossings was canopy opening size, with greater probability of crossing where canopy openings were smaller. Our findings support the importance of canopy opening size for road crossing of arboreal taxa, but they also indicate the relevant role roadside forest structure may have. Minimizing canopy opening size and forest disturbance along roads can facilitate the movement of arboreal fauna and preserve the important role of spider monkeys and other arboreal taxa in seed dispersal and thus the maintenance and regeneration of forest diversity.
Drought‐related tree mortality is now a widespread phenomenon predicted to increase in magnitude with climate change. However, the patterns of which species and trees are most vulnerable to drought, ...and the underlying mechanisms have remained elusive, in part due to the lack of relevant data and difficulty of predicting the location of catastrophic drought years in advance. We used long‐term demographic records and extensive databases of functional traits and distribution patterns to understand the responses of 20–53 species to an extreme drought in a seasonally dry tropical forest in Costa Rica, which occurred during the 2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation event. Overall, species‐specific mortality rates during the drought ranged from 0% to 34%, and varied little as a function of tree size. By contrast, hydraulic safety margins correlated well with probability of mortality among species, while morphological or leaf economics spectrum traits did not. This firmly suggests hydraulic traits as targets for future research.
We took advantage of an exceptionally strong El Niño‐related drought in 2015 to understand the effects on tree mortality in a diverse, seasonally dry tropical forest. Tree mortality rates differed widely among species, ranging from 0% to 34%, and varied little as a function of tree size. We correlated the mean mortality rates by species with a large number of potential explanatory variables and found that hydraulic safety margins correlated well with probability of mortality among species, while soft traits such as wood density did not. This firmly suggests hydraulic traits as targets for future research.
Extreme climate events can have important consequences for the dynamics of natural populations, and severe droughts are predicted to become more common and intense due to climate change. We analysed ...infant mortality in relation to drought in two primate species (white-faced capuchins,
and Geoffroy's spider monkeys,
) in a tropical dry forest in northwestern Costa Rica. Our survival analyses combine several rare and valuable long-term datasets, including long-term primate life-history, landscape-scale fruit abundance, food-tree mortality, and climate conditions. Infant capuchins showed a threshold mortality response to drought, with exceptionally high mortality during a period of intense drought, but not during periods of moderate water shortage. By contrast, spider monkey females stopped reproducing during severe drought, and the mortality of infant spider monkeys peaked later during a period of low fruit abundance and high food-tree mortality linked to the drought. These divergent patterns implicate differing physiology, behaviour or associated factors in shaping species-specific drought responses. Our findings link predictions about the Earth's changing climate to environmental influences on primate mortality risk and thereby improve our understanding of how the increasing severity and frequency of droughts will affect the dynamics and conservation of wild primates.
Male philopatry in spider monkeys revisited Aureli, Filippo; Di Fiore, Anthony; Murillo-Chacon, Evin ...
American journal of physical anthropology,
September 2013, Letnik:
152, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Senses form the interface between animals and environments, and provide a window into the ecology of past and present species. However, research on sensory behaviours by wild frugivores is sparse. ...Here, we examine fruit assessment by three sympatric primates (
,
and
) to test the hypothesis that dietary and sensory specialization shape foraging behaviours.
and
groups are comprised of dichromats and trichromats, while all
are trichomats. We use anatomical proxies to examine smell, taste and manual touch, and opsin genotyping to assess colour vision. We find that the frugivorous spider monkeys (
) sniff fruits most often, omnivorous capuchins (
), the species with the highest manual dexterity, use manual touch most often, and that main olfactory bulb volume is a better predictor of sniffing behaviour than nasal turbinate surface area. We also identify an interaction between colour vision phenotype and use of other senses. Controlling for species, dichromats sniff and bite fruits more often than trichromats, and trichromats use manual touch to evaluate cryptic fruits more often than dichromats. Our findings reveal new relationships among dietary specialization, anatomical variation and foraging behaviour, and promote understanding of sensory system evolution.
Drought-related tree mortality is now a widespread phenomenon predicted to increase in magnitude with climate change. However, the patterns of which species and trees are most vulnerable to drought, ...and the underlying mechanisms have remained elusive, in part due to the lack of relevant data and difficulty of predicting the location of catastrophic drought years in advance. In this work, we used long-term demographic records and extensive databases of functional traits and distribution patterns to understand the responses of 20–53 species to an extreme drought in a seasonally dry tropical forest in Costa Rica, which occurred during the 2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation event. Overall, species-specific mortality rates during the drought ranged from 0% to 34%, and varied little as a function of tree size. By contrast, hydraulic safety margins correlated well with probability of mortality among species, while morphological or leaf economics spectrum traits did not. This firmly suggests hydraulic traits as targets for future research.
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