5th International Symposium-Workshop on Frugivores and Seed Dispersal (1985-2010)
FSD 2010 - Spider Monkey
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Spider Monkey (Ateles paniscus)
Following the ATBC meeting in Suriname, Ateles paniscus is the first animal to introduce this webpage dedicated to highlight Frugivores and seed dispersers. Spider monkey (7 species of Ateles) belongs to the family Atelidae that also includes 10 species of howler monkeys (Alouatta), 2 muriquis (Brachyteles), 4 woolly monkeys (Lagothrix), and 1 yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Oreonax). All eat fruit and disperse seeds as large as 40 mm in length, which are among the largest propagules to be swallowed and defecated along routes by arboreal mammals in the neotropics (Forget et al. 2007). Meamwhile, seeds are taken away from the parent plants, thus dispersed (cf. Russo and Augspurger 2004). In many neotropical forests, spider monkey species are endangered by hunting (cf. de Thoisy et al. 2005) as well as other human activities such as goldmining and habitat fragmentation, which has detrimental consequences for seed fate, seedling recruitment and tree recruitment of many dispersed plants (Nunez-Iturri and Howe 2007).
References and information
de Thoisy, B., Renoux, F. & Julliot, C. (2005) Hunting in northern French Guiana and its impact on primate communities. Oryx 39: 149-157. Abstract.
Forget, P.-M., Dennis, A. J., Jansen, P. A., Kitamura, S. Lambert, J. E. Mazer, S. J. & Westcott, D. A. (2007) Relation between seed allometry and frugivore size in tropical rain forests : a cross-continental comparison. Pp. 5-36 In Seed dispersal: theory and its application in a changing world edited by A. J. Dennis, E. W. Schupp, R. A. Green and D. A. Westcott. CABI, Wallingford, UK.
Nunez-Iturri, G. & Howe, H. F. (2007) Bushmeat and the fate of trees with seeds dispersed by large primates in a lowland rain forest in western Amazonia. Biotropica 39: 348-354. Abstract.
Russo, S. E. & Augspurger, C. K. (2004) Aggregated seed dispersal by spider monkeys limits recruitment to clumped patterns in Virola calophylla. Ecology Letters 7: 1058-1067. Abstract.
Illustration credit: François Feer.
