Journal ArticleDOI
Evolutionary Consequences of Fallback Foods
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
The assumption that fallback foods play an important role in shaping morphological adaptations, behavior, and socioecology in primates is examined and it is suggested that preferred resources tend to drive adaptations for harvesting foods.Abstract:
Primatologists use the term fallback foods to denote resources of relatively low preference that are used seasonally when preferred foods are unavailable. We examine the assumption that fallback foods play an important role in shaping morphological adaptations, behavior, and socioecology in primates. We discuss operational definitions of preferred and fallback foods and suggest that the evolutionary importance of fallback foods applies more to adaptations for processing than for harvesting foods. Equally, we propose that preferred resources tend to drive adaptations for harvesting foods. We distinguish 2 classes of fallback foods according to their roles in the diet and their evolutionary effects. Staple fallback foods are available year-round, tend to be eaten throughout the year, and seasonally can constitute up to 100% of the diet. Filler fallback foods never constitute 100% of the diet, and may be completely avoided for weeks at a time. We suggest that the availability of the 2 classes of fallback foods have different effects on the socioecology of primate species.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Impending extinction crisis of the world's primates: why primates matter
Alejandro Estrada,Paul A. Garber,Anthony B. Rylands,Christian Roos,Eduardo Fernandez-Duque,Anthony Di Fiore,K. Anne-Isola Nekaris,Vincent Nijman,Eckhard W. Heymann,Joanna E. Lambert,Francesco Rovero,Claudia Barelli,Joanna M. Setchell,Thomas R. Gillespie,Russell A. Mittermeier,Luis D. Verde Arregoitia,Miguel de Guinea,Sidney F. Gouveia,Ricardo Dobrovolski,Sam Shanee,Noga Shanee,Sarah A. Boyle,Agustín Fuentes,Katherine C. MacKinnon,Katherine R. Amato,Andreas L. S. Meyer,Serge A. Wich,Serge A. Wich,Robert W. Sussman,Ruliang Pan,Inza Koné,Baoguo Li +31 more
TL;DR: Raising global scientific and public awareness of the plight of the world’s primates and the costs of their loss to ecosystem health and human society is imperative.
Journal ArticleDOI
Defining fallback foods and assessing their importance in primate ecology and evolution.
TL;DR: This article begins by comparing two recently published conceptual frameworks for considering the evolutionary significance of fallback foods and proposes a way in which these approaches might be integrated, and considers a series of questions about the importance of fall back foods for primates.
Journal ArticleDOI
The feeding biomechanics and dietary ecology of Australopithecus africanus
David S. Strait,Gerhard W. Weber,Simon Neubauer,Janine Chalk,Brian G. Richmond,Peter W. Lucas,Mark A. Spencer,Caitlin Schrein,Paul C. Dechow,Callum F. Ross,Ian R. Grosse,Barth W. Wright,Paul J. Constantino,Bernard Wood,Brian R. Lawn,William L. Hylander,Qian Wang,Craig D. Byron,Dennis E. Slice,Amanda L. Smith +19 more
TL;DR: The authors found that the facial skeleton of the Australopithecus type species, A. africanus, is well suited to withstand premolar loads and that the mastication of either small objects or large volumes of food is unlikely to fully explain the evolution of facial form in this species.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mechanical Properties of Plant Underground Storage Organs and Implications for Dietary Models of Early Hominins
TL;DR: The mechanical properties of USOs from 98 plant species from across sub-Saharan Africa found that rhizomes were the most resistant to deformation and fracture, followed by tubers, corms, and bulbs, and the results support assumptions that roasting lessens the work of mastication, and, by inference, the cost of digestion.
BookDOI
Long-term field studies of primates
Peter M. Kappeler,David P. Watts +1 more
TL;DR: Long-term field studies have been used extensively in the literature to understand the behavioral plasticity and population dynamics of a critically endangered species, such as Cebus capucinus as mentioned in this paper.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The comparison of usage and availability measurements for evaluating resource preference
TL;DR: This paper proposes a new method, based on ranks of components by usage and by availability, that results in a ranking of the components on the basis of preference, and permits significance tests of the ranking.
Book
Resource Selection by Animals : Statistical design and analysis for field studies
TL;DR: This paper presents a meta-modelling procedure for estimating a resource selection probability function from a census of resource units using logistic regression and discriminant function methods and its applications in resource selection and resource selectory studies.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cultures in chimpanzees
Andrew Whiten,Jane Goodall,William C. McGrew,Toshisada Nishida,Vernon Reynolds,Yukimaru Sugiyama,Caroline E. G. Tutin,Richard W. Wrangham,Christophe Boesch +8 more
TL;DR: It is found that 39 different behaviour patterns, including tool usage, grooming and courtship behaviours, are customary or habitual in some communities but are absent in others where ecological explanations have been discounted.
Journal ArticleDOI
An Ecological Model of Female-Bonded Primate Groups
TL;DR: A model is presented to account for the evolution of FB groups in terms of ecological pressures on female relationships and suggests that relationships in most FB groups are ultimately related to feeding competition.