Vervet Emphasis Type="Italic"Chlorocebus pygery

Authors: Julie A Teichroeb Maxine M J White Colin A Chapman

Publish Date: 2015/02/13

Volume: 36, Issue: 1, Pages: 154-176

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Abstract

The costs and benefits of groupliving are not distributed evenly among group members Individuals that maintain positions on the front outside edge of the group encounter most predators first but are more likely to access food patches before others Therefore a tradeoff exists in which a strategy maximizing safety by staying in the group’s center may lower foraging success whereas a strategy maximizing food acquisition may increase predation risk We examined intragroup spatial positions for vervets Chlorocebus pygerythrus at Lake Nabugabo Uganda relative to sex age dominance rank and activity when the group was moving and when it was stationary We used artificial food patches of varied richness to examine which individuals found new food sources and what share they obtained When the group was stationary highranking females tended to be at the group’s center while males and subordinates were at the group’s edge Moving and feeding occurred more than expected at the edge while social behavior took place in the center When the group was moving most females stayed in the center of the group but dominant males and the alpha female foraged at the front outside edge of the group These dominants also found more artificial food patches and foraged at greater interindividual distances than those in the center Whether they found patches or scrounged at the patches found by others highranking individuals obtained more food than subordinates but their overall share was greatest when they acted as producers rather than scroungers This likely explains why dominant individuals traded off predation risk for food acquisition by consistently foraging on the front outside edge of the group farther from conspecificsWe thank the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology for permission to conduct this research The McGill University Animal Care committee methods approved these methods We are also grateful to Dennis Twinomugisha Patrick Omeja Lauren Chapman Matovu Ponsiano Jan Gogarten and Jessica Rothman who provided assistance both in and out of the field The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada provided funding The helpful comments of Joanna Setchell Brandon Wheeler and one anonymous reviewer improved the manuscript

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