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Howler Monkeys pp 413–428Cite as

New Challenges in the Study of Howler Monkey Behavioral Ecology and Conservation: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go

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

Abstract

Howler monkeys comprise some 12 species of fruit, leaf, and flower feeding New World primates (see Cortés-Ortiz et al. 2014) that range from southern Mexico through southern Argentina and Brazil. Alouatta has the most widespread distribution of any platyrrhine genus and can exploit forest types that vary from undisturbed rainforest to severely anthropogenically impacted forest fragments adjacent to pastures, agricultural fields, and human communities (Estrada 2014). In many instances, howlers are the only primate species found in these highly disturbed habitats. Although there exist numerous short-term and long-term studies on individual howler species, the goal of this volume is to bring together a set of expert scholars, many from habitat countries, to contribute to a comprehensive volume that reviews, integrates, and evaluates current information on howler behavior, ecology, nutrition, reproduction, evolution, and conservation. Moreover, recently published studies on howler nutritional ecology, patterns of habitat utilization, mating strategies, collective action, and conservation highlight the growing importance of the genus Alouatta as a comparative model for examining parallel solutions to social and ecological challenges faced by species of prosimians, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and apes (Kowalewski and Garber 2010; Di Fiore et al. 2011; Garber and Kowalewski 2011).

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Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge the following scholars for contributing ideas to this chapter: Katherine Amato, Alejandro Estrada, Tracie McKinney, Nicoletta Righini, Andrés Gómez, Marta Mudry, Rosalía Pastor-Nieto, Rodolfo Martínez-Mota, Víctor Arroyo, Dawn Kitchen, Pedro Días, Sarie Van Belle, Júlio César Bicca-Marques, Melissa Raguet-Schofield, Alfie Rosenberger, and Marcelo Tejedor. MK thanks to Mariana Raño and Bruno! As always PAG could not have written any of this without the love, support, and silliness of Chrissie, Sara, and Jenni.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA

    Paul A. Garber

  2. Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA

    Paul A. Garber

  3. Estación Biológica Corrientes, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Martín M. Kowalewski

Authors
  1. Paul A. Garber
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Correspondence to Paul A. Garber .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Estación Biológica Corrientes, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Martín M. Kowalewski

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA

    Paul A. Garber

  3. Museum of Zoology, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Liliana Cortés-Ortiz

  4. Centro de Antropología, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Caracas, Venezuela

    Bernardo Urbani

  5. Department of Zoology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Dionisios Youlatos

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Garber, P.A., Kowalewski, M.M. (2015). New Challenges in the Study of Howler Monkey Behavioral Ecology and Conservation: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go. In: Kowalewski, M., Garber, P., Cortés-Ortiz, L., Urbani, B., Youlatos, D. (eds) Howler Monkeys. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1960-4_15

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