Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of City University of New York, New York, New York, USA,
Hunter College Primate Molecular Ecology Lab (PMEL), New York, New York, USA,
Folia Primatol (Basel). 2021;92(1):12-34. doi: 10.1159/000510965. Epub 2020 Nov 10.
Ranging behavior is one important strategy by which nonhuman primates obtain access to resources critical to their biological maintenance and reproductive success. As most primates live in permanent social groups, their members must balance the benefits of group living with the costs of intragroup competition for resources. However, some taxa live in more spatiotemporally flexible social groups, whose members modify patterns of association and range use as a method to mitigate these costs. Here, we describe the range use of one such taxon, the black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata), at an undisturbed primary rain forest site in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar, and characterize sex differences in annual home range area, overlap, and daily distances traveled. Moreover, we characterize seasonal variability in range use and ask whether ranging behaviors can be explained by either climatic or reproductive seasonality. We found that females used significantly larger home ranges than males, though sexes shared equal and moderate levels of home range overlap. Overall, range use did not vary across seasons, although within sexes, male range use varied significantly with climate. Moreover, daily path length was best predicted by day length, female reproductive state, and sex, but was unrelated to climate variables. While the patterns of range use and spatial association presented here share some similarities with "bisexually bonded" community models described for chimpanzees, we argue that ruffed lemurs best conform to a "nuclear neighborhood" community model wherein nuclear (core) groups share the highest levels of home range overlap, and where these groups cluster spatially into adjacent "neighborhoods" within the larger, communally defended territory.
领域行为是灵长类动物获取对其生物维持和生殖成功至关重要的资源的重要策略之一。由于大多数灵长类动物生活在永久性的社会群体中，它们的成员必须在群体生活的利益与群体内资源竞争的成本之间取得平衡。然而，一些分类单元生活在更具时空灵活性的社会群体中，其成员通过改变关联和领域使用模式来减轻这些成本。在这里，我们描述了在马达加斯加 Ranomafana 国家公园未受干扰的原始雨林地点的一种此类分类单元——黑白领狐猴（Varecia variegata）的领域使用情况，并描述了年度家域面积、重叠度和每日行进距离的性别差异。此外，我们描述了领域使用的季节性变化，并询问领域行为是否可以用气候或生殖季节性来解释。我们发现，雌性使用的家域明显大于雄性，尽管雌雄之间的家域重叠程度相等且适中。总体而言，家域使用在季节之间没有变化，尽管在性别内部，雄性的家域使用随气候显著变化。此外，每日路径长度与日长、雌性生殖状态和性别最相关，但与气候变量无关。虽然这里提出的领域使用和空间关联模式与描述黑猩猩的“两性结合”社区模型有一些相似之处，但我们认为领狐猴最符合“核心群体”社区模型，其中核心（核心）群体的家域重叠度最高，并且这些群体在更大的、共同防御的领地内空间聚类成相邻的“邻里”。
