Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Teichroeb, Julie A.
• White, Maxine M. J.
• Chapman, Colin A.

Titel

Vervet (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) Intragroup Spatial Positioning: Dominants Trade-Off Predation Risk for Increased Food Acquisition

Ist Teil von

• International journal of primatology, 2015-02, Vol.36 (1), p.154-176

Ort / Verlag

Boston: Springer US

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

SpringerLink (Online service)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The costs and benefits of group-living 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 trade-off 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, high-ranking 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, high-ranking 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 conspecifics.