Primate Ecology

Buccal dental microwear analyses support greater specialization in consumption of hard foodstuffs for Australopithecus anamensis

by Jordi Galbany

Ferran Estebaranz, Jordi Galbany, Laura M Martínez, Daniel Turbón & Alejandro Pérez-Pérez (2012, accepted) Buccal dental microwear analyses support greater specialization in consumption of hard foodstuffs for Australopithecus anamensis. Journal of Anthropological Sciences.

Molar occlusal microwear texture and anisotropy analyses of 3 Australopithecus anamensis fossil specimens have shown... more Molar occlusal microwear texture and anisotropy analyses of 3 Australopithecus anamensis fossil specimens have shown complexity values similar to those of Au.afarensis,indicating that neither of these hominin species had a diet dominated by hard food. However, many researchers have suggested that these were some of the earliest hominins to have such diets. Here we examine buccal microwear patterns of 5 Au. anamensis, 26 Au. afarensis, 48 Hominoidea and 80 Cercopithecoidea primate specimens for independent evidence of dietary adaptations of Au. anamensis. The buccal microwear results obtained suggest that the diet of Au.anamensis relied heavily on hard, brittle food, at least seasonally. This is similar to the diet of the extant Cercopithecoidea primates, including Papio anubis and Chlorocebus aethiops, both of which live in wooded, seasonal savannah environments and have diets that include fruit and grasses, but also underground storage organs (USOs), such as corms or blades, as well as leaves and seeds, and also Mandrillus and Cercocebus, from forested environments with frugivorous-granivorous diets. Furthermore, the buccal microwear patterns of Au.anamensis and Au.afarensis clearly differed –in clear contrast to occlusal enamel texture observations–, which support previous dietary interpretations based on both anatomical and palaeocological reconstructions.

Keywords: hominin, diet, feeding ecology, buccal microwear, fallback food, Australopithecus anamensis

Seed predation by bonobos ( Pan paniscus ) at Kokolopori, Democratic Republic of the Congo

by Alexander Georgiev

Species co-occurrence patterns and dietary resource competition in primates

by Justin Ledogar

2011. Kamilar JM, Ledogar JA. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 144:131-139.

Diamond (Assembly of species communities. In: Cody ML, Diamond JM, editors. Ecology and evolution of communities.... more Diamond (Assembly of species communities. In: Cody ML, Diamond JM, editors. Ecology and evolution of communities. Cambridge: Belknap. p 342–444 (1975)) argued that interspecific competition between species occupying similar niches results in a nonrandom pattern of species distributions. In particular, some species pairs may never be found in the same community due to competitive exclusion. Rigorous analytical methods have been developed to investigate the possible role that interspecific competition has on the evolution of communities. Many studies that have implemented these methods have shown support for Diamond’s assembly rules, yet there are numerous exceptions. We build on this previous research by examining the co-occurrence patterns of primate species in 109 communities from across the world. We used Eco-Sim to calculate a checkerboard (C) score for each region. The C score provides a measure of the proportion of species pairs that do not co-occur in a set of communities. High C scores indicate that species are nonrandomly distributed throughout a region, and interspecific competition may be driving patterns of competitive exclusion. We conducted two sets of analyses. One included all primate species per region, and the second analysis assigned each species to one of four dietary guilds: frugivores, folivores, insectivores, and frugivore-insectivores. Using all species per region, we found significantly high C scores in 9 of 10 regions examined. For frugivores, we found significantly high C scores in more than 50% of regions. In contrast, only 23% of regions exhibited significantly high-C scores for folivores. Our results suggest that communities are nonrandomly structured and may be the result of greater levels of interspecific competition between frugivores compared to folivores.

Land Use In Semi-Free Ranging Tonkean Macaques Macaca Tonkeana Depends on Environmental Conditions: A Geographical Information System Approach

by Cedric Sueur

Group decision-making in chacma baboons: leadership, order and communication during movement.

by Cedric Sueur

Mosaic evolution of activity pattern, diet, and color vision in haplorhine primates

by Callum Ross

Heesy, C.P. and Ross, C.F. (2004) Mosaic evolution of activity pattern, diet, and color vision in haplorhine primates. In, C.F. Ross and R.F. Kay, eds., Anthropoid Origins: New Visions. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, pp. 665-698.

Phylogeny and distribution of crested gibbons (genus Nomascus) based on mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequence data

by Chris Hallam

Extinctions, traits and phylogenetic community structure, insights from primate assemblages in Madagascar

by Amy Dunham

on line early version

Do Savanna chimps consume C4 resources?

by Jill Pruetz

The Mio-Pliocene European primate fossil record: dynamics and habitat tracking

by Jussi Eronen

We present here a study of European Neogene primate occurrences in the context of changing humidity. We studied the... more We present here a study of European Neogene primate occurrences in the context of changing humidity. We studied the differences of primate localities versus non-primate localities by using the mammal communities and the ecomorphological data of the taxa present in the communities. The distribution of primates is influenced by humidity changes during the whole Neogene, and the results suggest that the primates track the changes in humidity through time. The exception to this is the Superfamily Cercopithecoidea which shows a wider range of choices in habitats. All primate localities seem to differ from non-primate localities in that the mammal community structure is more closed habitat oriented, while in non-primate localities the community structure changes towards open-habitat oriented in the late Neogene. The differences in primate and non-primate localities are stronger during the times of deep environmental change, when primates are found in their preferred habitats and non-primate localities have faunas better able to adapt to changing conditions.

New Range Limits of the Sun-Tailed Monkey, Cercopithecus solatus, in Central Gabon

by Lauren Coad

Linear enamel hypoplasias and the dietary adaptations of Cebus [ABST]

by Justin Gladman

Presented as a poster at the 2011 annual meeting for the American Association of Physical Anthropology (AAPA) in Minneapolis, MN.

A dental topographic analysis of chimpanzees

by Zachary Klukkert

Co-authors Mark Teaford and Peter Ungar. American Journal of Physical Anthropology special issue on Dental Ecology. 148:276-284 (2012)

Molar tooth morphology is generally said to reflect a compromise between phylogenetic and functional influences.... more Molar tooth morphology is generally said to reflect a compromise between phylogenetic and functional influences. Chimpanzee subspecies have been reported to exhibit differences in molar dimensions and nonmetric traits, but these have not been related to differences in their diets. And in fact, observations to date of the diets of chimpanzees have not revealed consistent differences among subspecies. This study uses dental topographic analyses shown to reflect diet-related differences in occlusal morphology among primate species, to assess within-species variation among chimpanzee subspecies. High-resolution casts from museum collections were examined by laser scanning, and resulting data were analyzed using GIS algorithms and a two-factor ANOVA model. Although differences were noted between wear stages within subspecies in surface slope, relief, and angularity, none were found to distinguish the subspecies from one another in these attributes. This might reflect limitations in the ability of this method to detect diet-related differences, but is also consistent with a lack of differences in functionally relevant aspects of occlusal morphology among chimpanzee subspecies. Am J Phys Anthropol 148:276–284, 2012.

Locomotor behavior of wild orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) in disturbed peat swamp forest, Sabangau, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

by Kirsten Manduell

Manduell, K. L., Morrogh-Bernard, H. C., Thorpe, S. K. S. (2011). Locomotor behavior of wild orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) in disturbed peat swamp forest, Sabangau, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 145(3), 348-359, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21495

This study examined the locomotor behavior of wild Bornean orangutans (P. p. wurmbii) in an area of disturbed peat... more This study examined the locomotor behavior of wild Bornean orangutans (P. p. wurmbii) in an area of disturbed peat swamp forest (Sabangau Catchment, Indonesia) in relation to the height in the canopy, age-sex class, behavior (feeding or traveling), and the number of supports used to bear body mass. Backward elimination log-linear modeling was employed to expose the main influences on orangutan locomotion. Our results showed that the most important distinctions with regard to locomotion were between suspensory and compressive, or, orthograde (vertical trunk) and pronograde (horizontal trunk) behavior. Whether orangutans were traveling or feeding had the most important influence on locomotion whereby compressive locomotion had a strong association with feeding, suspensory locomotion had a strong association with travel in the peripheral strata using multiple supports, whereas vertical climb/descent and oscillation showed a strong association with travel on single supports in the core stratum. In contrast to theoretical predictions on positional behavior and body size, age-sex category had a limited influence on locomotion. The study revealed that torso orthograde suspension dominates orangutan locomotion, concurring with previous studies in dipterocarp forest. But, orangutans in the Sabangau exhibited substantially higher frequencies of oscillatory locomotion than observed at other sites, suggesting this behavior confers particular benefits for traversing the highly compliant arboreal environment typical of disturbed peat swamp forest. In addition, torso pronograde suspensory locomotion was observed at much lower levels than in the Sumatran species. Together these results highlight the necessity for further examination of differences between species, which control for habitat.

Primate parasite ecology: patterns and predictions from an on-going study of Japanese macaques

by Andrew J. J. MacIntosh

Inter-group encounters and male incursions in Colobus vellerosus in central Ghana

by Andrew J. J. MacIntosh

Host age, sex, and reproductive seasonality affect nematode parasitism in wild Japanese macaques

by Andrew J. J. MacIntosh

Fractal analysis of behaviour in a wild primate: behavioural complexity in health and disease

by Andrew J. J. MacIntosh

Vigilance in ursine black and white colobus monkeys (Colobus vellerosus): an examination of the effects of conspecific threat and predation

by Andrew J. J. MacIntosh

Frugivory in four sympatric lemurs: implications for the future of Madagascar's forests

by Andrea Baden