Department of Biomedical Sciences, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan, USA.
Am J Primatol. 2024 Jun;86(6):e23614. doi: 10.1002/ajp.23614. Epub 2024 Mar 3.
Primates face severe challenges from climate change, with warming expected to increase animals' thermoregulatory demands. Primates have limited long-term options to cope with climate change, but possess a remarkable capacity for behavioral plasticity. This creates an urgency to better understand the behavioral mechanisms primates use to thermoregulate. While considerable information exists on primate behavioral thermoregulation, it is often scattered in the literature in a manner that is difficult to integrate. This review evaluates the status of the available literature on primate behavioral thermoregulation to facilitate future research. We surveyed peer-reviewed publications on primate thermoregulation for N = 17 behaviors across four thermoregulatory categories: activity budgeting, microhabitat use, body positioning, and evaporative cooling. We recorded data on the primate taxa evaluated, support for a thermoregulatory function, thermal variable assessed, and naturalistic/manipulative study conditions. Behavioral thermoregulation was pervasive across primates, with N = 721 cases of thermoregulatory behaviors identified across N = 284 published studies. Most genera were known to utilize multiple behaviors ( = 4.5 ± 3.1 behaviors/genera). Activity budgeting behaviors were the most commonly encountered category in the literature (54.5% of cases), while evaporative cooling behaviors were the least represented (6.9% of cases). Behavioral thermoregulation studies were underrepresented for certain taxonomic groups, including lemurs, lorises, galagos, and Central/South American primates, and there were large within-taxa disparities in representation of genera. Support for a thermoregulatory function was consistently high across all behaviors, spanning both hot- and cold-avoidance strategies. This review reveals asymmetries in the current literature and avenues for future research. Increased knowledge of the impact thermoregulatory behaviors have on biologically relevant outcomes is needed to better assess primate responses to warming environments and develop early indicators of thermal stress.
灵长类动物面临着气候变化的严峻挑战，预计气温升高将增加动物的体温调节需求。灵长类动物应对气候变化的长期选择有限，但它们具有显著的行为可塑性能力。这就迫切需要更好地了解灵长类动物用于体温调节的行为机制。虽然关于灵长类动物行为体温调节的信息相当丰富，但这些信息通常分散在文献中，难以整合。本综述评估了有关灵长类动物行为体温调节的现有文献状况，以促进未来的研究。我们调查了有关灵长类动物体温调节的同行评议出版物，共涉及四个体温调节类别中的 17 种行为：活动预算、微生境利用、身体定位和蒸发冷却。我们记录了评估的灵长类动物分类群、支持的体温调节功能、评估的热变量以及自然/人为研究条件的数据。行为体温调节在灵长类动物中普遍存在，在 284 篇已发表的研究中，共发现了 721 种与体温调节有关的行为。大多数属被认为使用多种行为（平均值为 4.5±3.1 种/属）。活动预算行为是文献中最常见的类别（54.5%的情况），而蒸发冷却行为的代表性最低（6.9%的情况）。某些分类群的行为体温调节研究代表性不足，包括狐猴、懒猴、夜猴和中/南美洲灵长类动物，并且在属的代表性方面存在很大的差异。所有行为都得到了一致的高支持，涵盖了热回避和冷回避策略。本综述揭示了当前文献中的不对称性和未来研究的方向。需要增加对体温调节行为对生物学相关结果的影响的了解，以便更好地评估灵长类动物对变暖环境的反应，并开发出热应激的早期指标。
