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Time Constraints Do Not Limit Group Size in Arboreal Guenons but Do Explain Community Size and Distribution Patterns.

ABSTRACT: To understand how species will respond to environmental changes, it is important to know how those changes will affect the ecological stress that animals experience. Time constraints can be used as indicators of ecological stress. Here we test whether time constraints can help us understand group sizes, distribution patterns, and community sizes of forest guenons (Cercopithecus/Allochrocebus). Forest guenons typically live in small to medium sized one-male-multifemale groups and often live in communities with multiple forest guenon species. We developed a time-budget model using published data on time budgets, diets, body sizes, climate, and group sizes to predict maximum ecologically tolerable group and community sizes of forest guenons across 202 sub-Saharan African locations. The model correctly predicted presence/absence at 83% of these locations. Feeding-foraging time (an indicator of competition) limited group sizes, while resting and moving time constraints shaped guenon biogeography. Predicted group sizes were greater than observed group sizes but comparable to community sizes, suggesting community sizes are set by competition among guenon individuals irrespective of species. We conclude that time constraints and intraspecific competition are unlikely to be the main determinants of relatively small group sizes in forest guenons. Body mass was negatively correlated with moving time, which may give larger bodied species an advantage over smaller bodied species under future conditions when greater fragmentation of forests is likely to lead to increased moving time. Resting time heavily depended on leaf consumption and is likely to increase under future climatic conditions when leaf quality is expected to decrease.

SUBMITTER: Korstjens AH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6182722 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Time Constraints Do Not Limit Group Size in Arboreal Guenons but Do Explain Community Size and Distribution Patterns.

Korstjens Amanda H AH Lehmann Julia J Dunbar R I M RIM

International journal of primatology 20180711 4

To understand how species will respond to environmental changes, it is important to know how those changes will affect the ecological stress that animals experience. Time constraints can be used as indicators of ecological stress. Here we test whether time constraints can help us understand group sizes, distribution patterns, and community sizes of forest guenons (<i>Cercopithecus/Allochrocebus</i>). Forest guenons typically live in small to medium sized one-male-multifemale groups and often liv ...[more]

PMID: 30369685

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Project description:A major goal of community ecology is to identify the patterns of species associations and the processes that shape them. Arboreal ants are extremely diverse and abundant, making them an interesting and valuable group for tackling this issue. Numerous studies have used observational data of species co-occurrence patterns to infer underlying assembly processes, but the complexity of these communities has resulted in few solid conclusions. This study takes advantage of an observational dataset that is unusually well-structured with respect to habitat attributes (tree species, tree sizes, and vegetation structure), to disentangle different factors influencing community organization. In particular, this study assesses the potential role of interspecific competition and habitat selection on the distribution patterns of an arboreal ant community by incorporating habitat attributes into the co-occurrence analyses. These findings are then contrasted against species traits, to explore functional explanations for the identified community patterns. We ran a suite of null models, first accounting only for the species incidence in the community and later incorporating habitat attributes in the null models. We performed analyses with all the species in the community and then with only the most common species using both a matrix-level approach and a pairwise-level approach. The co-occurrence patterns did not differ from randomness in the matrix-level approach accounting for all ant species in the community. However, a segregated pattern was detected for the most common ant species. Moreover, with the pairwise approach, we found a significant number of negative and positive pairs of species associations. Most of the segregated associations appear to be explained by competitive interactions between species, not habitat affiliations. This was supported by comparisons of species traits for significantly associated pairs. These results suggest that competition is the most important influence on the distribution patterns of arboreal ants within the focal community. Habitat attributes, in contrast, showed no significant influence on the matrix-wide results and affected only a few associations. In addition, the segregated pairs shared more biological characteristic in common than the aggregated and random ones.

Dataset Information

Time Constraints Do Not Limit Group Size in Arboreal Guenons but Do Explain Community Size and Distribution Patterns.

Publications

Time Constraints Do Not Limit Group Size in Arboreal Guenons but Do Explain Community Size and Distribution Patterns.

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