Dados do Trabalho

Título

Save it for a rainy day: water hyacinths (Eichhornia sp.) and its consumption by the white-faced-spider-monkey (Ateles marginatus) in the rainy season

Resumo

Spider monkeys are highly frugivorous primates, with their diets consisting mainly on ripe fruits. Such diet is complemented with other items such as leaves, flowers, seeds, aerial roots, invertebrate species, decaying wood and soil, and their consumption tends to increase in the dry season, when the availability of fruits decreases in tropical forests. Here, we collected behavior data from a group of white-faced-spider-monkeys (Ateles marginatus) at the Cristalino Natural Heritage Private Reserve (RPPN Cristalino) in four months of the dry season (September/October 2011 and April/May 2012) (8 full-days total) and five months sampled for the rainy season (Nov/Dec 2011 and Jan/Feb/March 2012) (17 full-days total). We used the scan sampling method to collect feeding data. Feeding events outside the scans were recorded ad libitum, and not included in the total frequency. The intake of fruits was 46% on a monthly average in the dry season, and other items summed for a monthly average of 54%. For the rainy season, fruit consumption reached 88.3% and other food items decreased to 11.7% on average. Twice in February, we recorded spider monkeys consuming water hyacinths (Eichhornia sp.), to do so individuals descended to the ground by the river bank, an unusual behavior for the genus. Tour guides that navigate the river all year long also confirmed that such behavior is only observed in the rainy season. We suggest that the concentration of minerals in the plants and/or invertebrate fauna associated to water hyacinths are important for spider monkeys’ diet. It might also be easier for them to reach water hyacinths when the river level is higher. More studies on the importance of aquatic plants in the diet of spider monkeys are encouraged, as well as more research on the behavior and ecology of Ateles marginatus, an endangered species with few data available.

Financiadores

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoa de Nível Superior – CAPES

Palavras-chave

Feeding behavior; Seasonality; Atelidae

Área

Área 1 – Ecologia