Pygmy marmosets are distinctive given their diminutive body size, their year-round reliance upon exudates, and their use of morphologically adapted tegulae to engage in a high degree of claw-clinging behaviors associated with exudate exploitation. This project examined the positional behavior and habitat preferences of one group of pygmy marmosets in a secondary forest within the Department of Pando, northwestern Bolivia. Results from this study indicate that pygmy marmosets primarily use claw-clinging during feeding (89.6%) with preferential use of large vertical trunks. Claw-clinging was also the dominant postural mode during exudate foraging (43.1%) with preferential use of large vertical trunks. Quadrupedalism was the dominant locomotor mode during travel (55.7%) with preferential use of bamboo and medium-sized substrates. These results support previous notions that claw-climbing is a solution to overcome the constraints of small body size while suggesting that quadrupedalism is a habitat-dependent locomotor mode.
A new demosponge species of the order Haplosclerida, growing on mangrove roots in Port Royal, southeast coast Jamaica, is described as Haliclona (Reniera) portroyalensis n. sp. A short overview of previous work on Chalinidae and on Jamaican sponges is given, and we discuss how the new species differs from other member of the genus and subgenus. The holotype is purple alive and beige when preserved in alcohol. It has digitate and bulbous processes with scattered oscula, some laterally plush, and measuring 2–3 mm with larger ones up to 6 mm on the bulbous areas. The consistency is soft, and it is easily torn, but resilient. The megascleres, oxeas are straight to slightly curved with short conical points. The only microscleres are toxas which are of varying lengths numerous and distributed throughout the ectosome and choanosome.
Exudates are an important renewable resource for many primates. Exudate renewability is based on observations of primates repeatedly depleting exudate sites and measures of exudate trees’ daily replenishment rates, but the role of the consumer in the renewal process is unclear. Trees’ exudate production may be independent of the consumer, remaining unchanged regardless of depletion frequency, but since trees produce exudates as a physiological response to fungal infection, they may produce more exudates with more frequent depletion. To test these competing hypotheses, we employed a within-subjects experimental design in which we exposed pygmy marmosets’ exudate holes to two treatment conditions: collecting exudates after 5 h and collecting exudates every hour for five consecutive hours. To compare production outputs between treatments, we used generalised linear mixed modelling in which log-transformed production data were a function of treatment with exudate holes nested within trees as a random effect. The model indicated that the cumulative production of hourly exudate removal was significantly greater than the amount accumulated after 5 h. Furthermore, the random effect of holes nested within trees had the greatest impact on variation in differences between treatments, but another unknown source also contributed to the observed variation. These results support the hypothesis that consumers partly drive exudate production, and although it is unknown what other factors, such as fungal load and healing trajectory, may influence variation between treatments, we conclude that pygmy marmosets can stimulate exudate production by consuming exudates.
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