Habitat Partitioning Among Primates in Maracá Island, Roraima, Northern Brazilian Amazonia

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I studied a primate community on a tropical rainforest island, in the northernmost area of the Brazilian Amazonia. While walking through six distinct habitats along a 12-km trail, running toward the center of the island—a remote undisturbed area—I collected data on the use of the different forest types and forest strata by the primate community and the formation of either mixed groups or species assemblages. Five species are present: Cebus olivaceus, C. apella, Saimiri sciureus, Ateles belzubuth, and Alouatta seniculus. They seemed to be habitat generalists, using most habitat types. The five species used the higher strata more significantly, probably because Maraca does not present well-defined forest floors, which could be a result of being located in the transition between the great areas of savannah and the Amazonian seasonally dry forests. The five species all formed some polyspecific associations, which involved sharing the available food resource. Mixed groups were significantly more frequent and therefore possibly more important to Saimiri, which was not the case in relation to the other four species. Assemblages, defined as the presence in the same clumped resource, without coordinated activity, of ≤ 3 primate species, were recorded primarily in fruiting fig trees. I suggest that assemblages are impelled by food constraints, forcing cofeeding in large seasonal resources, highlighting the ecological importance of figs to these primates. Linear regression models show that the number of feeding bouts in each habitat type is positively related to the number of fruiting trees exploited, but the density of these fruit trees, diversity of plant species, tree height, and total basal area of each habitat type have no relationship to feeding.