Potts Richard
Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, D.C., USA.
Am J Primatol. 2004 Mar;62(3):209-28. doi: 10.1002/ajp.20016.
A bias favoring tree-dominated habitats and ripe-fruit frugivory has persisted in great ape evolution since the early Miocene. This bias is indicated by fossil ape paleoenvironments, molar morphology, dental microwear, the geographic pattern of extinctions, and extant apes' reliance on wooded settings. The ephemeral aspect of high-quality fruit has placed a premium on cognitive and social means of finding and defending food sources, and appears related to great apes' affinity since the Miocene for wooded, fruit-rich environments. These habitats have, however, undergone a severe withdrawal toward the low latitudes of Africa and Southeast Asia since the late Miocene, corresponding to a decline in the diversity of great apes beginning 9.5 million years ago. Plio-Pleistocene records imply that wooded settings of Africa and SE Asia were prone to substantial fragmentation and coalescence. Once apes were confined to equatorial settings, therefore, habitat instability heightened the spatial/temporal uncertainty of ripe-fruit sources. Prolonged learning, the assignment of attributes to distant places, mental representation, and reliance on fallback foods were all favored in this dynamic environmental context. These abilities helped sustain forest frugivory in most lineages. Fluid social grouping afforded the animals opportunities to locate ephemeral foods in continuous and fragmented forests. Fission-fusion grouping also magnified the problems of object impermanence (of individuals) and dispersion manifested by food sources in the ecological realm. Thus the spatial and temporal dynamics of fruit and wooded habitats since the Miocene are reflected in important components of great ape cognition, foraging, and sociality. In contrast to great apes, cercopithecoid monkeys have increased their plant dietary options and diversified in seasonal environments since the late Miocene. Early hominins eventually severed the habitat bias that characterized the evolution of great apes, and later expanded into diverse environments.
自中新世早期以来，在类人猿的进化过程中，一直存在着对以树木为主的栖息地和成熟果实食果习性的偏好。这种偏好通过猿类化石的古环境、臼齿形态、牙齿微磨损、灭绝的地理模式以及现存猿类对树木繁茂环境的依赖得以体现。优质果实的短暂性使得寻找和保卫食物来源的认知和社会手段变得至关重要，并且似乎与自中新世以来类人猿对树木繁茂、果实丰富的环境的偏好有关。然而，自中新世晚期以来，这些栖息地已严重退缩至非洲和东南亚的低纬度地区，这与950万年前开始的类人猿多样性下降相对应。上新世 - 更新世的记录表明，非洲和东南亚的树木繁茂环境容易发生大规模的破碎化和合并。因此，一旦猿类被限制在赤道地区，栖息地的不稳定性就增加了成熟果实来源的空间/时间不确定性。在这种动态的环境背景下，长期学习、对遥远地方属性的赋予、心理表征以及对替代食物的依赖都受到了青睐。这些能力有助于大多数谱系维持森林食果习性。灵活的社会群体为动物提供了在连续和破碎森林中定位短暂食物的机会。裂变 - 融合群体也放大了生态领域中食物来源所表现出的（个体的）物体恒存性和分散性问题。因此，自中新世以来果实和树木繁茂栖息地的时空动态反映在类人猿认知、觅食和社会性的重要组成部分中。与类人猿不同，自中新世晚期以来，猕猴科猴子增加了它们的植物性饮食选择，并在季节性环境中实现了多样化。早期人类最终打破了类人猿进化过程中特有的栖息地偏好，后来扩展到了多样化的环境中。
