Abstract
Objectives: Primates that live in predominantly forested habitats and open, savanna mosaics should exhibit behavioral responses to differing food distributions and weather. We compared ecological constraints on red-tailed monkey ranging behavior in forest and savanna mosaic environments. Intraspecific variation in adaptations to these conditions may reflect similar pressures faced by hominins during the Plio-Pleistocene. Methods: We followed six groups in moist evergreen forest at Ngogo (Uganda) and one group in a savanna-woodland mosaic at the Issa Valley (Tanzania). We used spatial analyses to compare home range sizes and daily travel distances (DTD) between sites. We used measures of vegetation density and phenology to interpolate spatially explicit indices of food (fruit, flower, and leaves) abundance. We modeled DTD and range use against food abundance. We modeled DTD and at Issa hourly travel distances (HTD), against temperature and rainfall. Results: Compared to Issa, monkeys at Ngogo exhibited significantly smaller home ranges and less variation in DTD. DTD related negatively to fruit abundance, which had a stronger effect at Issa. DTD and HTD related negatively to temperature but not rainfall. This effect did not differ significantly between sites. Home range use did not relate to food abundance at either site. Conclusions: Our results indicate food availability and thermoregulatory constraints influence red-tailed monkey ranging patterns. Intraspecific variation in home range sizes and DTD likely reflects different food distributions in closed and open habitats. We compare our results with hypotheses of evolved hominin behavior associated with the Plio-Pleistocene shift from similar closed to open environments.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 217-231 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | American Journal of Physical Anthropology |
Volume | 170 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 1 2019 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:information American Society of Primatologists, Grant/Award Number: 2017 General Small Grant; Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny; UCSD; Liverpool John Moores UniversityWe thank the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology for permission to conduct research at Ngogo and the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute and the Commission for Science and Technology for permission to conduct research at the Issa Valley. EM's data collection was funded by the American Society of Primatologists and Liverpool John Moores University. The GMERC Project is supported by the UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). At Ngogo, we thank the Ngogo Monkey Project field team for assistance with botanical plots, Sylvia Amsler for sharing geospatial data from the Uganda Biomass Study, and David Watts, John Mitani, Kevin Langergraber, and the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project for collecting and sharing phenology and weather data. At Issa, we thank Sebastian Ramirez-Amaya, Eden Wondra, Noémie Bonnin, Camille Vitet, Michael Kimaro, and field assistants for additional data collection and Yahya Abeid for plant species identification. Finally, we thank Francis Gilbert for statistical advice.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Keywords
- guenon
- hominin adaptation
- movement ecology
- resource distribution
- savanna-woodland mosaic