Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Department of Medical Genetics, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Proc Biol Sci. 2022 Aug 31;289(1981):20220847. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0847. Epub 2022 Aug 17.
Senses form the interface between animals and environments, and provide a window into the ecology of past and present species. However, research on sensory behaviours by wild frugivores is sparse. Here, we examine fruit assessment by three sympatric primates (, and ) to test the hypothesis that dietary and sensory specialization shape foraging behaviours. and groups are comprised of dichromats and trichromats, while all are trichomats. We use anatomical proxies to examine smell, taste and manual touch, and opsin genotyping to assess colour vision. We find that the frugivorous spider monkeys () sniff fruits most often, omnivorous capuchins (), the species with the highest manual dexterity, use manual touch most often, and that main olfactory bulb volume is a better predictor of sniffing behaviour than nasal turbinate surface area. We also identify an interaction between colour vision phenotype and use of other senses. Controlling for species, dichromats sniff and bite fruits more often than trichromats, and trichromats use manual touch to evaluate cryptic fruits more often than dichromats. Our findings reveal new relationships among dietary specialization, anatomical variation and foraging behaviour, and promote understanding of sensory system evolution.
感觉形成了动物与环境之间的界面，为了解过去和现在物种的生态提供了一个窗口。然而，对野生食果动物的感觉行为的研究还很匮乏。在这里，我们研究了三种共生灵长类动物（、和）对果实的评估，以检验以下假设：饮食和感觉特化塑造了觅食行为。和群体由二色视者和三色视者组成，而所有都是三色视者。我们使用解剖学指标来检测嗅觉、味觉和手动触摸，并通过视蛋白基因分型来评估色觉。我们发现，食果的蜘蛛猴（）最常嗅探果实，杂食的卷尾猴（）是手动灵巧性最高的物种，最常使用手动触摸，并且嗅探行为的最佳预测指标是嗅球体积，而不是鼻甲骨表面积。我们还发现了色觉表型与其他感觉使用之间的相互作用。控制物种因素后，二色视者比三色视者更常嗅探和咬果实，而三色视者比二色视者更常使用手动触摸来评估隐蔽的果实。我们的研究结果揭示了饮食特化、解剖变异和觅食行为之间的新关系，并促进了对感觉系统进化的理解。
