Stringer Simon David, Hill Russell A, Swanepoel Lourens, Koyama Nicola F
School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom,
Department of Zoology, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa,
Folia Primatol (Basel). 2020;91(4):417-432. doi: 10.1159/000505369. Epub 2020 Feb 18.
Gut passage time of food has consequences for primate digestive strategies, which subsequently affect seed dispersal. Seed dispersal models are critical in understanding plant population and community dynamics through estimation of seed dispersal distances, combining movement data with gut passage times. Thus, developing methods to collect in situ data on gut passage time are of great importance. Here we present a first attempt to develop an in situ study of gut passage time in an arboreal forest guenon, the samango monkey (Cercopithecus albogularis schwarzi) in the Soutpansberg Mountains, South Africa. Cercopithecus spp. consume large proportions of fruit and are important seed dispersers. However, previous studies on gut passage times have been conducted only on captive Cercopithecusspp. subjects, where movement is restricted, and diets are generally dissimilar to those observed in the wild. Using artificial digestive markers, we targeted provisioning of a male and a female samango monkey 4 times over 3 and 4 days, respectively. We followed the focal subjects from dawn until dusk following each feeding event, collecting faecal samples and recording the date and time of deposition and the number of markers found in each faecal sample. We recovered 6.61 ± 4 and 13 ± 9% of markers from the male and the female, respectively, and were able to estimate a gut passage window of 16.63-25.12 h from 3 of the 8 trials. We discuss methodological issues to help future researchers to develop in situ studies on gut passage times.
食物在肠道中的通过时间会对灵长类动物的消化策略产生影响，进而影响种子传播。种子传播模型对于通过估计种子传播距离来理解植物种群和群落动态至关重要，它将移动数据与肠道通过时间相结合。因此，开发收集肠道通过时间原位数据的方法非常重要。在这里，我们首次尝试对南非苏特潘斯贝格山脉的一种树栖森林疣猴——桑氏猴（Cercopithecus albogularis schwarzi）进行肠道通过时间的原位研究。猕猴属动物食用大量水果，是重要的种子传播者。然而，之前关于肠道通过时间的研究仅在圈养的猕猴属动物个体上进行，这些个体活动受限，饮食通常与野外观察到的不同。我们使用人工消化标记物，分别在3天和4天内对一只雄性和一只雌性桑氏猴进行了4次投喂。每次投喂后，我们从黎明到黄昏跟踪目标个体，收集粪便样本，并记录粪便排出的日期和时间以及每个粪便样本中发现的标记物数量。我们分别从雄性和雌性个体中回收了6.61±4%和13±9%的标记物，并能够从8次试验中的3次估计出16.63 - 25.12小时的肠道通过时间窗口。我们讨论了方法学问题，以帮助未来的研究人员开展肠道通过时间的原位研究。
