Neotropical primate communities: Effects of disturbance, resource production and forest type heterogeneity.

Abstract

Undisturbed primate communities in the Neotropics are bottom-up structured as their biomass and species richness can be predicted from fruit production. However, the effects of fruit scarcity and the availability of forest types have not been fully analyzed, and seasonality is expected to differently affect small and large monkeys. The first aim of this study was to examine the effect of contrasting forest types within a location on the temporal variation in fruit production. The second was to assess the relative roles of disturbance, climate, patterns of fruit and leaf production, and plant composition on determining Neotropical primate communities. I compiled population density data for diurnal primate species from 154 sites to calculate species richness and assemblage biomass. Fruit abundance in the study sites was estimated from fruit trap data and phenology transects, and fruit variability was calculated as the monthly coefficient of variation (CV) and the length of the fruit scarcity period (LFSP). The results indicate that fruit production in floodplain forests is generally more variable than in terra firme forests, and this variation decreases in habitats with mixed forest types. Endozoochorous fruit production (based on fruit traps) and litter productivity were good predictors of the biomass of Neotropical primates (R2 = 0.83 and R2 = 0.59, respectively), but neither CV nor LFSP were good predictors. The biomass of large primates was independent of rainfall variation, but the biomass of small and medium sized monkeys was negatively correlated with temporal rainfall variability. Varzea forests tended to show higher biomass than those from terra firme and igapó. These results suggest that the production of fleshy fruits is the best predictor of the structure of primate assemblages in the Neotropics, but the effect of leaf quality and productivity remains to be investigated. Am. J. Primatol. 78:391-401, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.