Feeding Behavior of Yellow Baboons (Papio cynocephalus): Relationship to Age, Gender and Dominance Rank

Post, David; Hausfater, Glenn; McCuskey, Sue Ann

doi:10.1159/000155954

Cited by 150 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Low dietary overlap among individuals within a group and the early sex differences in dietary diversity that continue through adulthood may provide this additional ecological space. Dietary overlap both within and among age-sex categories was low but is similar to overlap found in baboons, which also feed from eclectic diets based on young leaves and fruit (Post et al 1980). This low level of overlap corresponds with sex differences in dietary diversity that began in juvenility and continued to adulthood.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

“…This low level of overlap corresponds with sex differences in dietary diversity that began in juvenility and continued to adulthood. These early and persistent differences in overlap and diversity are unlike sex differences in monkey species, where sex differences fluctuate more heavily throughout development (Post et al 1980;Harrison 1983;van Noordwijk et al 1993). However, like many other primates, female ringtailed lemur diets are more diverse (Gautier-Hion 1980;Boinski 1988;Grassi 2002), which may be a general strategy to meet fluctuating energetic and nutritional needs while minimizing fiber intake and exposure to secondary compounds (Ganzhorn 1989b;Yamashita 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mean dietary overlap of age-sex classes for the 2-week block intervals was calculated using random effects of individual and social group. However, because of the high number of age-sex pairwise combinations, the significance levels of the post-hoc comparisons of dietary overlap index is highly autocorrelated and we therefore present the age-sex values without significance levels (Post et al 1980). When no random effects were present (e.g., number of plants eaten by an age class), a general linear model (F) was fit to the data.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In species with few sex differences in adult foraging (Post et al 1980;Harrison 1983), sex differences are expected to be closely correlated with female reproductive status (Gautier-Hion 1980), and no sex differences are expected to be found in juveniles (van Noordwijk et al 1993). Likewise, juveniles of species with large and distinct adult sex differences in dietary composition or foraging strategy (Terborgh 1983;Fragaszy 1990;Lonsdorf 2005), which are often species with large degrees of sexual size dimorphism, will show similar patterns of sex differences in adults regardless of female reproductive stage.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The development of sex differences in ring-tailed lemur feeding ecology

O’Mara

Hickey

2014

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Sex differences in feeding ecology may develop in response to fluctuations in physiological costs to females over their reproductive cycles, or to sexual size dimorphism, or function to minimize feeding competition within a group via resource partitioning. For most mammal species, it is unknown how these factors contribute to sex differences in feeding, or how the development of males and females reflects these intraspecific feeding differences. We show changes in dietary composition, diversity, overlap, and foraging behavior throughout development in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) and test how the development of sex differences in feeding is related to female costs of reproduction and year-round resource partitioning. Sex differences in dietary composition were only present when females were lactating, but sex differences in other aspects of feeding, including dietary diversity, and relative time spent feeding and foraging, developed at or near the time of weaning. Sex difference in juveniles and subadults, when present, were similar to the differences found in adults. The low year-round dietary overlap and early differences in dietary diversity indicate that some resource partitioning may begin with young individuals and fluctuate throughout development. The major differences between males and females in dietary composition suggest that these larger changes in diet are closely tied to female reproductive state when females must shift their diet to meet energetic and nutritional requirements.Keywords Behavioral development . Diet . Juvenile . Female dominance . Reproduction . Resource partitioning . Lemur catta It is often expected that individuals within a population of different ages, sexes, and sizes, will exploit varying aspects of the species' feeding niche (Schoener 1986; Ebenman 1988). As part of this variation, sex differences in vertebrate feeding can range from temporal and spatial separation of males and females (Ruckstuhl and Neuhaus 2002;Ruckstuhl 2007) to differences in the composition and diversity in diet (CluttonBrock 1977a;Holmes 1986;Clarke et al. 1998;Lewis et al. 2002;Beck et al. 2005;Krüger 2005). For most species, however, little is known about when sex differences appear, how they change throughout development, if early sex differences mimic adult patterns, and if these sex differences function to partition resources or are only apparent with physiological differences between males and females, particularly those related to reproduction.The successful development of ecological competence and adult diet is the primary determinant of whether individuals

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The development of sex differences in ring-tailed lemur feeding ecology

O’Mara

Hickey

2014

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…Foods are more likely to be worth ®ghting over if they cannot be quickly depleted at a given individual feeding site (Post et al 1980;Shopland 1987). It is often presumed that clumped resources are more readily monopolizable or usurpable than dispersed resources (e.g., Southwick 1967;Chalmers 1968;Robinson 1981;Whitten 1983;Monaghan and Metcalfe 1985;Harcourt 1987;Altmann and Muruthi 1988;Boccia et al 1988;Brennan and Anderson 1988;Saito 1996).…”

Section: Dierences Between Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Movements of vervets ( Cercopithecus aethiops ) and patas monkeys ( Erythrocebus patas ) as estimators of food resource size, density, and distribution

Isbell

Pruetz

Young

1998

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

147

109

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The eect of food resources on behavior has been dicult to measure. Here we use animals themselves to describe``eective'' food abundance and distribution by comparing, relative to where individuals stopped to eat, movements of (1) adult females living in a small group of vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) with those living in a large group and (2) vervets and patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas). Although females in the large vervet group travelled farther and stopped to eat more often than females in the small vervet group, these dierences resulted from foraging in Acacia drepanolobium habitat. In A. xanthophloea habitat, females in the large group travelled less far, travelled shorter distances between foods, and stopped as often as females in the small group. Greater foraging costs of females in larger vervet groups may be oset by access to home ranges of better quality. Compared to patas, vervets travelled shorter distances, moved shorter distances between food sites, stopped less often, and had longer feeding bouts, suggesting that foods of vervets are denser and larger, overall, than foods of patas. When vervets foraged in A. drepanolobium habitat, also the habitat of patas, their foraging behavior became more like that of patas. Vervets travelled farther, stopped more often, and spent less time at food sites in A. drepanolobium habitat than in A. xanthophloea habitat, suggesting that foods are smaller and less usurpable in A. drepanolobium habitat. Distance between foods, a component of food distribution, did not increase, however. The critical variable underlying usurpability of foods may be food site depletion time, a temporal measure.

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