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Who is coordinating collective movements in black and gold howler monkeys?

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Abstract

Decisions about when and where to travel are likely to have a strong influence on the feeding, ecology, and foraging strategies of individual primates living in a cohesive social group. Specifically, given differences in age, sex, reproductive status, or social dominance, particular group members may benefit from remaining at their present location while others may benefit from traveling to another area of their range to feed or rest. In this study, we present data on movement coordination in two groups of wild black and gold howler monkeys inhabiting Isla Brasilera (27º 20′S and 58º 40′W) in northern Argentina. We examine how factors such as sex, age, reproductive status, and dominance affect patterns of group movement coordination at feeding or resting sites, and in the context of intergroup encounters. Two groups were followed five days a month from sunrise to sunset during June to November 2004. Using focal and scan sampling techniques, we recorded 262 group displacements, the identity of the individual initiating and leading displacement, and the identity of the first individual to arrive at feeding, resting, or intergroup encounter sites. We found that overall age was the only factor that influenced group coordination: adults led more often (94.5 %) than immature individuals (5.5 %) in both groups. We did not find differences among adults. However, we found that males lead more often than females at intergroup encounters, consistent with the male-mate defense hypothesis. The distributed leadership pattern among adults observed in this study may suggest that adult individuals make equally shared consensus decisions. This pattern should be further examined using this individual-level approach in other populations of black and gold howlers, other species of howlers, and in other atelines in which within-group social tolerance is the rule rather than the exception.

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Acknowledgments

We thank our field assistants, collaborators, Escuela Comunitaria Guacara, local people at Isla del Cerrito, Estacion Biologica Corrientes, Museo Argentino de Cs. Naturales “B Rivadavia,” and CONICET. This study was funded by The Graduate College—UIUC (MK), The Wenner-Gren Foundation (grant no. 7034; MK), The Leakey Foundation (MK), IdeaWild (MK), and the American Society of Primatologists (MK). We would also like to thank Luz Arias for helping us with the figures, Charlotte Bender and Emma Boston for helping with the manuscript, and Romina Pavé for her comments. VAF thanks Pablo Arístide for his unconditional support. The study complied with the current laws and permissions of Argentina and the United States (IACUC protocol 01071). We also want to say thank you to one anonymous reviewer and Dr. Lennart Wolfgang Pyritz for their insightful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Estación Biológica Corrientes-Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Av. Angel Gallardo 470, C1405DJR, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Vanina A. Fernández, Martín Kowalewski & Gabriel E. Zunino

  2. Instituto del Conurbano, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Los Polvorines, Argentina

    Gabriel E. Zunino

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  1. Vanina A. Fernández
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  2. Martín Kowalewski
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  3. Gabriel E. Zunino
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Correspondence to Vanina A. Fernández.

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Fernández, V.A., Kowalewski, M. & Zunino, G.E. Who is coordinating collective movements in black and gold howler monkeys?. Primates 54, 191–199 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-013-0342-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-013-0342-x

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