Fig Foraging by Dichromatic and Trichromatic Emph

Authors: Amanda D Melin Linda M Fedigan Chihiro Hiramatsu Tomohide Hiwatashi Nigel Parr Shoji Kawamura

Publish Date: 2009/10/26

Volume: 30, Issue: 6, Pages: 753-

PDF Link

Abstract

Figs are important resources for frugivores and Ficus is an ideal taxon for evaluating patterns of primate foraging related to food color Ficus spp can be classified as conspicuous color change from greenish to reddish during ripening or cryptic green throughout ripening To investigate the effect on foraging of color vision phenotype variation for these 2 types of figs we conducted a 20mo study on 4 groups of whitefaced capuchins Cebus capucinus in the Santa Rosa Sector of the ACG Costa Rica between May 2004 and September 2008 We genotyped all individuals and collected behavioral data on feeding rates acceptance indices and foraging sequences We found a significant effect of fig type feeding rates and acceptance indices were higher for conspicuous figs than for cryptic figs and subjects sniffed cryptic figs more often than conspicuous figs We also found that dichromats sniffed more figs and had longer foraging sequences than trichromats especially for cryptic figs Among 6 subtypes of dichromats and trichromats monkeys possessing the trichromat phenotype with the most spectrally separated LM opsin alleles showed the highest acceptance index for conspicuous figs though there were no differences in feeding rates among phenotypes We conclude 1 conspicuous figs are visually salient not only for trichromats but also for dichromats 2 olfaction is important for evaluating edibility of cryptic figs and 3 the reliance on olfaction for selecting fruit is greater in dichromats These results indicate divergent foraging strategies among color vision phenotypes for assessing food itemsWe thank James Higham for the invitation to contribute to this issue We thank R Blanco Segura M M Chavarria and other staff of the Area de Conservación Guanacaste for local support and the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía MINAE of Costa Rica for giving us permission to conduct this study in the Santa Rosa Sector of the ACG We thank Adrian Guadamuz for assistance with tree species identification Michael Lemmon for data on availability of Ficus and Adrienne Blauel Brandon Klug Courtney Sendall and Laura Weckman for their assistance in the field We thank John Addicott and Tak Fung for helpful advice on statistical analyses and James Higham and 2 anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions on previous versions of the manuscript This study was supported by grants from the Leakey Foundation the Alberta Ingenuity Fund the Animal Behavior Society and the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada NSERC to A D Melin NSERC and the Canada Research Chairs Program to L M Fedigan the GrantinAid for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science JSPS Fellows 1511926 to C Hiramatsu and the GrantsinAid for Scientific Research B 16405015 and A 19207018 from JSPS to S Kawamura We also thank the British Ecological Society for funding the attendance of AM to present these results at the XXII Congress of the International Primatological Society All research protocols abide by national law and were approved by the Animal Care Committee LESARC of the University of Calgary

Keywords: