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Resource Switching and Species Coexistence in Guenons: A Community Analysis of Dietary Flexibility

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The Guenons: Diversity and Adaptation in African Monkeys

Part of the book series: Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects ((DIPR))

Summary

Competition is generally viewed to be an important variable in structuring communities of closely related species occupying similar trophic space and may be most intense over limiting resources. Here, I have evaluated how cercopithecoids with extensive dietary overlap coexist. I examined species patterns of resource switching and expected species differences that relate to differences in digestive strategies between colobines and cercopithecines. Overall, the three cercopithecines had higher frequencies of resource switching than the colobine. Cercopithecus ascanius was found to have the most diverse diet and engaged in the most resource switching. I suggest that resource switching is facilitated by digestive flexibility. Such a mechanism may allow species packing and coexistence because it allows animals a means to switch to other dietary resources in the presence of other animal competitors or during times of seasonal scarcity. However, resource switching need not necessarily have evolved as a consequence of past competition. This may be either a retained primitive feature or one that evolved multiple times during population divergence that facilitated coexistence when species later came together.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    Joanna E. Lambert

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

    Mary E. Glenn

  2. Columbia University, New York, NY

    Marina Cords

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Lambert, J.E. (2004). Resource Switching and Species Coexistence in Guenons: A Community Analysis of Dietary Flexibility. In: Glenn, M.E., Cords, M. (eds) The Guenons: Diversity and Adaptation in African Monkeys. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48417-X_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48417-X_21

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