Dissertation Research: Ateline Primates as Seed Dispersers

地球上大部分的生物多样性是在热带雨林中发现的，热带低地的物种多样性特别高。由于这些栖息地在世界范围内大面积遭到破坏，这些地区植物和动物物种之间的生态关系，例如哺乳动物和它们的食物植物之间的生态关系，仍然很少被研究，尽管众所周知，树木和藤本植物种子的传播对维持热带森林植物多样性至关重要。这里提出的工作包括一项为期18个月的实地研究，将在厄瓜多尔东部亚苏尼国家公园的低地雨林进行，以调查灵长类动物在肉质水果中的种子传播。这项研究将比较两种同域灵长类动物的摄食生态，洪堡毛猴（Lagothrix lagotricha）和白腹蜘蛛猴（Ateles belzebuth）。研究方案包括对这两个物种的饮食和行为进行比较，特别强调所吃果实的分散、形态和化学特征，以及对该地区树木开花和结果的持续监测，并跟踪单株树木的种子传播和幼苗招募模式。通过研究灵长类动物的摄食模式与食用植物的传播和发芽，将详细记录这些相互作用的动态，并将确定作为生态相互作用者扮演最重要角色的植物和动物物种。这项工作将通过提供关于植物群落组成的详细信息，植物群落的生殖生物学，以及通过灵长类动物作为主要热带雨林树木和藤本植物的种子传播者的角色，植物和灵长类动物的相互作用，大大有助于了解亚马逊雨林群落和该森林多样性的动态。该项目还将扩展和深化对灵长类物种相互作用的认识。研究中的长毛猴和蜘蛛猴有着最近的共同祖先，相似的体型和重叠的饮食，这些特征使它们成为极好的研究物种，可以测试关于生态位分离和雨林动物共存的假设，并研究它们在种子传播中的作用。详细研究这两个相关物种在共同栖息地分配食物资源的方式，将有助于我们理解它们相对较近的进化分歧。

The majority of the earth's biodiversity is found in tropical rainforest, and species diversity is particularly high in the lowland tropics. As vast areas of these habitats are destroyed worldwide, the ecological relationships between plant and animal species in these areas, such as those between mammals and their food plants, remain little-studied, although it is known that dispersal of the seeds of trees and lianas must be critical to the maintenance of plant diversity in tropical forests. The work proposed here constitutes an 18 month field study to be conducted in the lowland rainforest of the Yasuni National Park in eastern Ecuador to investigate the dispersal of seeds in fleshy fruits by primates. The study will compare the feeding ecologies of two sympatric primate species, Humboldt's woolly monkey (Lagothrix lagotricha) and the white-bellied spider monkey (Ateles belzebuth). Research protocols include a dietary and behavioral comparison of the two species, with particular emphasis on the dispersion, morphology, and chemical characteristics of fruits eaten, as well as continuous monitoring of the flowering and fruiting of trees in the area and tracking the seed dispersal and seedling recruitment patterns of individual trees. By studying primate feeding patterns in concert with the dispersal and germination of food plants, the dynamics of these mutualisms will be documented in detail, and will identify plant and animal species that appear to play the most important roles as ecological interactors. The work will contribute substantially to knowledge of the Amazonian rainforest community and the dynamics of diversity in that forest by providing detailed information on the composition of the plant community, the reproductive biology of the plant community, and the interaction of plants and primates through the role of primates as seed dispersers of key rainforest trees and lianas. The project will also extend and deepen knowledge of the interactions of primate species. Woolly and spider monkeys in the study share a recent common ancestry, similar body size, and overlapping diets, and these characteristics make them excellent study species to test hypotheses on niche separation and coexistence of rainforest animals in conjunction with the study of their roles in dispersal of seeds. Detailed study of the manner in which these two related species divide the food resources in their shared habitat will benefit our understanding of their relatively recent evolutionary divergence.