Publications

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habitual stone-tool-aided extractive foraging in white-faced capuchins, cebus capucinus.habitual reliance on tool use is a marked behavioural difference between wild robust (genus sapajus) and gracile (genus cebus) capuchin monkeys. despite being well studied and having a rich repertoire of social and extractive foraging traditions, cebus sp. rarely use tools and have never been observed using stone tools. by contrast, habitual tool use by sapajus is widespread. we review theory and discuss factors which might explain these differences in patterns of tool use between cebus and sapa ...201830225086
the nutritional importance of invertebrates to female cebus capucinus imitator in a highly seasonal tropical dry forest.invertebrates are important foods for many primates and provide valuable nutrients often unavailable from plant sources. we examine the diet of white-faced capuchins (cebus capucinus imitator) to determine: (a) timing and types of invertebrate food consumption; (b) whether invertebrate consumption varies with availability of plant foods; and (c) how invertebrates contribute to energy and protein intake of females during different reproductive states.201931396949
increased terrestriality in a neotropical primate living on islands with reduced predation risk.an arboreal lifestyle is thought to be central to primate origins, and most extant primate species still live in the trees. nonetheless, terrestrial locomotion is a widespread adaptation that has arisen repeatedly within the primate lineage. the absence of terrestriality among the new world monkeys (platyrrhini) is thus notable and raises questions about the ecological pressures that constrain the expansion of platyrrhines into terrestrial niches. here, we report the results of a natural experim ...202032247060
differential impact of severe drought on infant mortality in two sympatric neotropical primates.extreme climate events can have important consequences for the dynamics of natural populations, and severe droughts are predicted to become more common and intense due to climate change. we analysed infant mortality in relation to drought in two primate species (white-faced capuchins, cebus capucinus imitator, and geoffroy's spider monkeys, ateles geoffroyi) in a tropical dry forest in northwestern costa rica. our survival analyses combine several rare and valuable long-term datasets, including ...202032431912
using urinary parameters to estimate seasonal variation in the physical condition of female white-faced capuchin monkeys (cebus capucinus imitator).the physical condition of females depends on access to resources, which vary over space and time. assessing variation in physical condition can help identify factors affecting reproductive success, but noninvasive measurement is difficult in wild animals. creatinine concentration relative to the specific gravity (i.e., density) of urine has promise for noninvasively quantifying the relative muscle mass (rmm) of wild primates. we verified the relationship between these urinary parameters for wild ...201728555757
trichromacy increases fruit intake rates of wild capuchins (cebus capucinus imitator).intraspecific color vision variation is prevalent among nearly all diurnal monkeys in the neotropics and is seemingly a textbook case of balancing selection acting to maintain genetic polymorphism. clear foraging advantages to monkeys with trichromatic vision over those with dichromatic "red-green colorblind" vision have been observed in captive studies; however, evidence of trichromatic advantage during close-range foraging has been surprisingly scarce in field studies, perhaps as a result of s ...201728894009
seasonality of the gut microbiota of free-ranging white-faced capuchins in a tropical dry forest.research on the gut microbiota of free-ranging mammals is offering new insights into dietary ecology. however, for free-ranging primates, little information is available for how microbiomes are influenced by ecological variation through time. primates inhabiting seasonal tropical dry forests undergo seasonally specific decreases in food abundance and water availability, which have been linked to adverse health effects. throughout the course of a seasonal transition in 2014, we collected fecal sa ...201930135468
trichromatic perception of flower colour improves resource detection among new world monkeys.many plants use colour to attract pollinators, which often possess colour vision systems well-suited for detecting flowers. yet, to isolate the role of colour is difficult, as flowers also produce other cues. the study of florivory by neotropical primates possessing polymorphic colour vision provides an opportunity to investigate the importance of colour directly. here we determine whether differences in colour vision within a mixed population of wild dichromatic and trichromatic white-faced cap ...201830022096
small to modest impact of social group on the gut microbiome of wild costa rican capuchins in a seasonal forest.the horizontal transmission of pathogenic and beneficial microbes has implications for health and development of socially living animals. social group is repeatedly implicated as an important predictor of gut microbiome structure among primates, with individuals in neighboring social groups exhibiting distinct microbiomes. here we examine whether group membership is a predictor of gut microbiome structure and diversity across three groups of white-faced capuchins (cebus capucinus imitator) inhab ...201931081233
group versus population level demographics: an analysis of comparability using long term data on wild white-faced capuchin monkeys (cebus capucinus imitator).primates have long been used as indicator species for assessing overall ecosystem health. however, area-wide census methods are time consuming, costly, and not always feasible under many field conditions. therefore, it is important to establish whether monitoring a subset of a population accurately reflects demographic changes occurring in the population at large. over the past 35 years, we have conducted 15 area-wide censuses in sector santa rosa, costa rica. these efforts have revealed importa ...201931286542
infant mortality in white-faced capuchins: the impact of alpha male replacements.infanticide is common in the context of alpha male replacements (amr), particularly in groups where alpha males experience high reproductive skew and the infants are unlikely to be related to a new alpha male. we examined the relationship between the rate of infant mortality, infant age, and the occurrence and type of amr in white-faced capuchin monkeys (cebus capucinus imitator) of the santa rosa population in sector santa rosa, área de conservación guanacaste. specifically, we investigated how ...201729140543
seasonal importance of flowers to costa rican capuchins (cebus capucinus imitator): implications for plant and primate.our goal is to investigate flower foraging by capuchin monkeys, a behavior rarely studied in wild primates. we ask what drives seasonal variation in florivory rates: flower quality and abundance or fluctuations in fruit and invertebrate abundances. we explore how capuchins affect the reproductive success of flower food species by quantifying the potential pollination rate.201627492752
inbreeding avoidance and female mate choice shape reproductive skew in capuchin monkeys (cebus capucinus imitator).reproductive skew in multimale groups may be determined by the need for alpha males to offer reproductive opportunities as staying incentives to subordinate males (concessions), by the relative fighting ability of the alpha male (tug-of-war) or by how easily females can be monopolized (priority-of-access). these models have rarely been investigated in species with exceptionally long male tenures, such as white-faced capuchins, where female mate choice for novel unrelated males may be important i ...201727797426
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