Characterization of primate environments through assessment of plant phenology
نویسندگان
چکیده
Plant allocation to reproduction and growth is not evenly spread over time. In most plant species, production of flowers, fruits, and leaves is confined to a limited portion of the year (Leith 1974; van Schaik and Pfannes 2005). In some taxa, bouts of flowering, fruiting, and leaf flushing may be separated by periods of many years (e.g., Southeast Asian mast flowering and fruiting: Wich and van Schaik 2000). Plant phenological patterns create substantial temporal and spatial variation in the availability of plant foods and consequently primate diets, with a number of important implications for primate reproduction, grouping, ranging, and sociality (van Schaik et al. 1993; van Schaik and Brockman 2005). For example, in many primate species, reproduction is timed to coincide with periods when plant food availability maximizes the chances of offspring survival (Myers and Wright 1993; Knott 1998). The size and cohesiveness of primate groups often fluctuates substantially over time in response to the availability of plant foods (Chapman et al. 1995; Wrangham et al. 1996) and primate ranging patterns are often influenced by plant phenological patterns (Buij et al. 2002; Hemingway and Bynum 2005). Finally, fundamental differences in sociality among primate taxa are hypothesized to depend on the nature and temporal stability of a species’ plant food supply (Wrangham 1980; Sterck et al. 1997; Marshall and Wrangham 2007). Accurate characterization of plant phenology is therefore centrally important to many facets of field primatology. In this chapter we provide an overview of the methods primatologists employ to assess plant phenology. Our focus is on practical issues of most relevance to field primatologists who seek to characterize the environments that their study subjects inhabit. We discuss the benefits and limitations of various sampling methods, OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/2/2013, SPi
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