Saddle-back tamarin (Saguinus fuscicollis) reproductive strategies: Evidence from a thirteen-year study of a marked population

Abstract

We monitored a population of four to seven groups of individually marked saddle-back tamarins (Saguinus fuscicollis; Callitrichidae) at the Cocha Cashu Biological Station in Peru's Manu National Park every year from 1979 through 1992. In this paper we use data on life histories, group compositions, group formations, and dispersal patterns collected during these 13 years to examine the reproductive strategies of males and females. Group compositions and mating patterns were quite variable in this population, with both monogamy and cooperative polyandry common. In polyandrous groups, two males shared a female's copulations and cooperatively cared for her young. Although most groups contained a single breeding female, we recorded four cases in which secondary females successfully reared young. Most young females appeared to wait in their natal groups for the first opportunity to fill a primary breeding position in their own or a neighboring group. Females that acquired primary breeding positions maintained those positions for a mean of 3 years. No female was observed to transfer between groups a second time. Variation in female lifetime reproductive success was high. Half of the females marked as juveniles never bred; the other half produced an average of 3.5 young. A paucity of female breeding opportunities may explain the high mortality of females between 2.5 and 4.5 years of age and the resulting male-biased adult sex ratio. The majority of groups contained more than one probable male breeder. Polyandrous groups included both related and unrelated males. Behavioral differences between Cocha Cashu tamarins and other studied populations may result from the pressures of living in an environment inhabited by nine other primate species and numerous predators. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.