Rangel-Negrín Ariadna, Coyohua-Fuentes Alejandro, Canales-Espinosa Domingo, Dias Pedro Américo D
Folia Primatol (Basel). 2018;89(2):111-122. doi: 10.1159/000486414. Epub 2018 Mar 7.
The analysis of factors that determine variation in time budgets is important to understand the interactions between environment, behaviour and fitness. We tested the hypothesis that changes in the dietary patterns of black howler monkeys (Alouatta pigra) caused by a decrease in the availability of preferred foods are a main determinant of variation in time budgets. We predicted that individuals would trade off travel time for resting time (i.e., minimize energy expenditure) as the diet included more leaves. We conducted our study in the Mexican state of Campeche between 2005 and 2008, where we studied the behaviour of 28 adult males and 32 adult females belonging to 14 different groups for a total of 3,747.2 focal sampling hours. Study groups lived in forest fragments with variation in habitat quality. Individuals showed different rest:travel trade-offs in response to leaf consumption according to the quality of the forest fragments they lived in. Individuals that lived in high-quality fragments increased resting time under more folivorous regimes, whereas those living in low-quality fragments increased travel time. Our results suggest that howler monkeys living in low-quality fragments spend more time foraging to compensate for the low quality of the available resources.
分析决定时间分配变化的因素对于理解环境、行为和适应性之间的相互作用至关重要。我们检验了这样一个假设：由于首选食物的可获得性下降，黑吼猴（Alouatta pigra）饮食模式的变化是时间分配变化的主要决定因素。我们预测，随着饮食中树叶含量增加，个体将用旅行时间换取休息时间（即尽量减少能量消耗）。我们于2005年至2008年在墨西哥坎佩切州开展研究，在那里我们对属于14个不同群体的28只成年雄性和32只成年雌性的行为进行了研究，总计进行了3747.2个焦点取样小时。研究群体生活在栖息地质量各异的森林碎片中。根据它们所生活的森林碎片的质量，个体在应对树叶消耗时表现出不同的休息与旅行权衡。生活在高质量碎片中的个体在更多食叶状态下增加了休息时间，而生活在低质量碎片中的个体增加了旅行时间。我们的结果表明，生活在低质量碎片中的吼猴会花费更多时间觅食，以弥补可用资源的低质量。
