Demographic and reproductive patterns in moustached tamarin monkeys (Saguinus mystax): Implications for reconstructing platyrrhine mating systems.

Abstract

In this paper we address a series of questions concerning reproductive opportunities, kinship, dispersal, and mating patterns in free-ranging moustached tamarin monkeys (Saguinus mystax). Between 1980 and 1990 information on group size, composition, and migration patterns was collected on marked groups of moustached tamarins inhabiting Padre Isla, an island in the Amazon Basin of northeastern Peru. In 1990, 86% of 114 animals residing in 16 social groups were trapped, examined, and released. Mean group size was 7.0, including 2.2 adult males and 2.0 adult females. None of these groups was characterized by a single adult male-female pair. In groups with more than one adult female, only the oldest female produced offspring. An examination of dispersal patterns indicates that transfers between groups were common and fell into several categories, including immigration of individual males and females, simultaneous transfer of pairs of subadult and/or adult males (sometimes relatives) into the same social groups, and group fissioning in which males and females of the splinter group join another small social group. We have no unambiguous cases of 2 adult/subadult females migrating together into the same social group. All 6 groups for which reproductive data were available were characterized by either a polyandrous or polygynous (polygyandrous) mating pattern. The results of this study indicate that moustached tamarins reside in small multimale multifemale groups that are likely to contain both related and unrelated adult group members. Kinship and social ties among males appear to be stronger and more longlasting than kinship and social ties among females. We contend that the modal mating system of moustached and many other tamarins is not monogamous, and offer the possibility that cooperative infant care and mating system flexibility in callitrichines evolved from a polygynous mating pattern. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.