Behavioral thermoregulation in a gregarious lemur, Eulemur collaris: Effects of climatic and dietary‐related factors

Abstract

Primates deal with fluctuations of the thermal environment by both physiological and behavioral mechanisms of thermoregulation. In this article we focus on non-hibernating lemurs, which are hypometabolic and have to cope with a seasonal environment. Behavioral thermoregulation has received little attention compared with specific physiological adaptations to seasonality, i.e., hibernation and torpor, which characterize a number of lemurs. We investigated the role of seasonality and dietary-related factors in determining frequencies of resting, social and postural thermoregulation, and microhabitat selection in collared lemurs, Eulemur collaris. We observed two groups of collared lemurs over a 14-month period in the littoral forest of Sainte Luce, Southern Madagascar. Frequencies of total resting and time spent in huddling, prone, and curled postures were collected via 5-min instantaneous sampling. Microhabitat selection was evaluated as the proportion of time spent in the upper canopy as compared with other layers. Climatic variables were recorded by automatic data loggers, while dietary variables were derived from phenological data and nutritional analyses of the ingested food items. We weighted the combined effects of climatic and dietary variables on the different types of behavioral thermoregulation by means of canonical correlation analysis. The model with the strongest canonical correlation included a first root representing mainly feeding time, day length, and ambient temperature and a second root representing diet quality and height of feeding trees. The output indicated that collared lemurs adapt to thermal and dietary-related metabolic stress by adjusting resting time, social, and postural thermoregulation.