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Stanford, Craig B.; Nkurunungi, John Bosco

doi:10.1023/a:1024689008159

Cited by 176 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Our results support the evidence that central chimpanzee densities are closely linked to a higher fruit availability as was found in other chimpanzee subspecies (Potts, Watts, & Wrangham, 2011;Stanford & Nkurunungi, 2003). The suggestion that chimpanzee densities are determined by the availability of fruits is supported by Basabose (2005), who observed chimpanzees visiting gorilla preferred nesting habitats to consume their preferred Ficus spp.…”

Section: Spatial Distribution Of Preferred and Fallback Fruits And supporting

confidence: 90%

The distribution of plant consumption traits across habitat types and the patterns of fruit availability suggest a mechanism of coexistence of two sympatric frugivorous mammals

Tédonzong

Willie

Tagg

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Understanding the mechanisms governing the coexistence of organisms is an important question in ecology, and providing potential solutions contributes to conservation science. In this study, we evaluated the contribution of several mechanisms to the coexistence of two sympatric frugivores, using western lowland gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla ) and central chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes troglodytes ) in a tropical rainforest of southeast Cameroon as a model system. We collected great ape fecal samples to determine and classify fruit species consumed; we conducted great ape nest surveys to evaluate seasonal patterns of habitat use; and we collected botanical data to investigate the distribution of plant species across habitat types in relation to their “consumption traits” (which indicate whether plants are preferred or fallback for either gorilla, chimpanzee, or both). We found that patterns of habitat use varied seasonally for both gorillas and chimpanzees and that gorilla and chimpanzee preferred and fallback fruits differed. Also, the distribution of plant consumption traits was influenced by habitat type and matched accordingly with the patterns of habitat use by gorillas and chimpanzees. We show that neither habitat selection nor fruit preference alone can explain the coexistence of gorillas and chimpanzees, but that considering together the distribution of plant consumption traits of fruiting woody plants across habitats as well as the pattern of fruit availability may contribute to explaining coexistence. This supports the assumptions of niche theory with dominant and subordinate species in heterogeneous landscapes, whereby a species may prefer nesting in habitats where it is less subject to competitive exclusion and where food availability is higher. To our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the contribution of plant consumption traits, seasonality, and habitat heterogeneity to enabling the coexistence of two sympatric frugivores. OPEN RESEARCH BADGES This article has earned an Open Data Badge for making publicly available the digitally‐shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported results. The data is available at https://datadryad.org/resource/doi:10.5061/dryad.ms65f29 10.5061/dryad.ms65f29 .

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Section: Spatial Distribution Of Preferred and Fallback Fruits And supporting

confidence: 90%

The distribution of plant consumption traits across habitat types and the patterns of fruit availability suggest a mechanism of coexistence of two sympatric frugivorous mammals

Tédonzong

Willie

Tagg

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Environmental conditions at MDNP are similar to GGNP, Nigeria, and additionally, tree species richness was similar at both sites (Fowler, 2006). Sites with high species diversity are generally linked with greater fleshy fruit diversity in chimpanzee diets (Head et al, 2011;Newton-Fisher, 1999;Potts, Watts, & Wrangham, 2011;Tutin et al, 1991;Tweheyo & Lye, 2005;Watts et al, 2012) than sites with lower species diversity (Chancellor, Rundus, & Nyandwi, 2012;Hunt & McGrew, 2002;Stanford & Nkurunungi, 2003). The density of lianas was more important at the ecotone compared to the rainforest sites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Habitat differentiation among three Nigeria–Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) populations

Abwe

Morgan

Tchiengué

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Ecological niche models (ENMs) are often used to predict species distribution patterns from datasets that describe abiotic and biotic factors at coarse spatial scales. Ground‐truthing ENMs provide important information about how these factors relate to species‐specific requirements at a scale that is biologically relevant for the species. Chimpanzees are territorial and have a predominantly frugivorous diet. The spatial and temporal variation in fruit availability for different chimpanzee populations is thus crucial, but rarely depicted in ENMs. The genetic and geographic distinction within Nigeria–Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) populations represents a unique opportunity to understand fine scale species‐relevant ecological variation in relation to ENMs. In Cameroon, P. t. ellioti is composed of two genetically distinct populations that occupy different niches: rainforests in western Cameroon and forest–woodland–savanna mosaic (ecotone) in central Cameroon. We investigated habitat variation at three representative sites using chimpanzee‐relevant environmental variables, including fruit availability, to assess how these variables distinguish these niches from one another. Contrary to the assumption of most ENM studies that intact forest is essential for the survival of chimpanzees, we hypothesized that the ecotone and human‐modified habitats in Cameroon have sufficient resources to sustain large chimpanzee populations. Rainfall, and the diversity, density, and size of trees were higher at the rainforest. The ecotone had a higher density of terrestrial herbs and lianas. Fruit availability was higher at Ganga (ecotone) than at Bekob and Njuma. Seasonal variation in fruit availability was highest at Ganga, and periods of fruit scarcity were longer than at the rainforest sites. Introduced and secondary forest species linked with anthropogenic modification were common at Bekob, which reduced seasonality in fruit availability. Our findings highlight the value of incorporating fine scale species‐relevant ecological data to create more realistic models, which have implications for local conservation planning efforts.

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“…Community compositions at the ordinal rank were compared by Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) and neighbor-net analysis based on Bray-Curtis distance in MEGAN. We compared animal (Metazoa) and land plant (Embryophyta) taxa (ordinal level or higher) presence/absence in the sedimentary DNA record against regional species (Butynski, 1984;Kasangaki et al, 2003Kasangaki et al, , 2008Stanford and Nkurunungi, 2003;Olupot and Plumptre, 2010;Mugerwa et al, 2013;Decru et al, 2019) and pollen records (Marchant et al, 1997;Marchant and Taylor, 1998). Pollen data were obtained from the African pollen database hosted at ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/pollen/tiliafiles/ apd/ (accessed 3 November 2019).…”

Section: Metagenomic Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thirteen of the 14 orders detected by sedDNA were also recorded by pollen analysis (Marchant et al, 1997). The order Solanales not found as pollen, however, contains species that occur in Bwindi today (e.g., Stanford and Nkurunungi, 2003). One of the most frequently taxa detected by sedDNA is Poales, which includes the family Cyperaceae and which is the most common pollen type in the cores of Marchant et al (1997).…”

Section: Limitations Of Current Metagenomic Databasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Importantly, Bwindi harbors one of the two globally surviving populations of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) with a population of about 400 individuals (Roy et al, 2014). This forest reserve is also the only place where mountain gorillas are sympatric with chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) (Stanford and Nkurunungi, 2003). Our study leveraged an undisturbed swamp located in the middle of Bwindi Forest that contains sediments dating back to the Pleistocene (Marchant et al, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Challenges of Reconstructing Tropical Biodiversity With Sedimentary Ancient DNA: A 2200-Year-Long Metagenomic Record From Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda

et al. 2020

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Tropical Sedimentary Ancient DNA Preservation references in public databases. Of the remaining 7.7%, most of the data (93.0%) derive from Bacteria and Archaea, whereas only 0-5.8% are from Metazoa and 0-6.9% from Viridiplantae, in part due to unbalanced taxa representation in the reference data. The plant DNA record at ordinal level agrees well with local pollen data but resolves less diversity. Our animal DNA record reveals the presence of 41 native taxa (16 orders) including Afrotheria, Carnivora, and Ruminantia at Bwindi during the past 2200 years. Overall, we observe no decline in taxonomic richness with increasing age suggesting that several-thousand-year-old information on past biodiversity can be retrieved from tropical sediments. However, comprehensive genomic surveys of tropical biota need prioritization for sedimentary DNA to be a viable methodology for future tropical biodiversity studies.

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Untitled

Cited by 176 publications

References 36 publications

The distribution of plant consumption traits across habitat types and the patterns of fruit availability suggest a mechanism of coexistence of two sympatric frugivorous mammals

The distribution of plant consumption traits across habitat types and the patterns of fruit availability suggest a mechanism of coexistence of two sympatric frugivorous mammals

Habitat differentiation among three Nigeria–Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti) populations

The Challenges of Reconstructing Tropical Biodiversity With Sedimentary Ancient DNA: A 2200-Year-Long Metagenomic Record From Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda

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