SEASONAL MORTALITY PATTERNS IN NON‐HUMAN PRIMATES: IMPLICATIONS FOR VARIATION IN SELECTION PRESSURES ACROSS ENVIRONMENTS |
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| Authors: | Jan F Gogarten Leone M Brown Colin A Chapman Marina Cords Diane Doran‐Sheehy Linda M Fedigan Frederick E Grine Susan Perry Anne E Pusey Elisabeth H M Sterck Serge A Wich Patricia C Wright |
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| Institution: | 1. Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794;2. Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7;3. E‐mail: jan.gogarten@mail.mcgill.ca;4. Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, New York 11794;5. Department of Anthropology and McGill School of Environment, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7;6. Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York 10460;7. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, 1109 Schermerhorn Extension, 1200 Amsterdam Avenue, New York 10027;8. Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794;9. Department of Anthropology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada;10. Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794;11. Department of Anthropology, University of California at Los Angeles, 341 Haines Hall—Box 951553, Los Angeles, California 90095;12. Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, 104 Biological Sciences Building, Box 90383, Durham, North Carolina 27708;13. Behavioural Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CA, Utrecht, The Netherlands;14. Ethology Research, Biomedical Primate Research Center, Lange Kleiweg 161, 2288 GJ Rijswijk, The Netherlands;15. Anthropological Insitute, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland;16. Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (PanEco‐YEL), Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia;17. Centre ValBio, Ranomafana, Madagascar |
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| Abstract: | Examining seasonal mortality patterns can yield insights into the drivers of mortality and thus potential selection pressures acting on individuals in different environments. We compiled adult and juvenile mortality data from nine wild non‐human primate taxa to investigate the role of seasonality in patterns of mortality and address the following questions: Is mortality highly seasonal across species? Does greater environmental seasonality lead to more seasonal mortality patterns? If mortality is seasonal, is it higher during wet seasons or during periods of food scarcity? and Do folivores show less seasonal mortality than frugivores? We found seasonal mortality patterns in five of nine taxa, and mortality was more often tied to wet seasons than food‐scarce periods, a relationship that may be driven by disease. Controlling for phylogeny, we found a positive relationship between the degree of environmental seasonality and mortality, with folivores exhibiting more seasonal mortality than frugivores. These results suggest that mortality patterns are influenced both by diet and degree of environmental seasonality. Applied to a wider array of taxa, analyses of seasonal mortality patterns may aid understanding of life‐history evolution and selection pressures acting across a broad spectrum of environments and spatial and temporal scales. |
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| Keywords: | Climate change fitness natural selection paleontology phylogenetic comparative analysis seasonality |
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