Can cyclone exposure explain behavioural and demographic variation among lemur species?

Autor: Behie AM; School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia., Steffens TS; Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph, MacKinnon, Guelph, Canada.; Planet Madagascar, Guelph, Ontario, Canada., Yaxley K; School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.; Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia., Vincent A; Division of Evolution, Ecology & Genetics, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia., Wright PC; Environmental Education Department, Centre ValBio, Ranomafana, Ifanadiana, Madagascar.; Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America., Johnson SE; Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada., Pavelka MSM; Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Mar 27; Vol. 19 (3), pp. e0300972. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Mar 27 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300972
Abstrakt: Madagascar has a harsh and stochastic climate because of regular natural disturbances. This history of regular cyclones has been hypothesised to have directed evolutionary changes to lemur behaviour and morphology that make them more resilient to sudden environmental change. These adaptations may include: small group sizes, high degrees of energy-conserving behaviours, generalist habitat use, small home ranges, small body size, and a limited number of frugivorous species. To date, however, no one has tested how variation in cyclone exposure across Madagascar is associated with variation in these resilience traits. In this study, we created a detailed cyclone impact map for Madagascar using Koppen-Geiger climate class, historical cyclone tracks, the Saffir Class of cyclone and hurricane intensity, and precipitation data. We also used existing literature to calculate a resilience score for 26 lemur species for which data existed on resilience traits. Our cyclone impact map was then overlaid on known geographic ranges of these species and compared to resilience score while controlling for phylogenetic non-independence and spatial autocorrelation. We found no association between cyclone impact in a lemur range and their resilience score. When assessing traits individually, however, we found that cyclone impact was positively associated with body size, suggesting that the more impacted a species is by cyclones the smaller they are. We also found cyclone impact to be negatively associated with frugivory, with species in higher impact zones eating more fruit. While unexpected, this could reflect an increased production in fruit in tree fall gaps following cyclones. While we did not find a pattern between cyclone impact and behavioural resilience in lemurs, we suggest a similar study at a global scale across all primates would allow for more taxonomic variation and reveal larger patterns key to understanding past and future vulnerability to natural disturbances in primates.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Behie et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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