Journal ArticleDOI
Western gorilla diet: a synthesis from six sites.
M. Elizabeth Rogers,Katharine Abernethy,Magdalena Bermejo,Chloé Cipolletta,Diane M. Doran,Kelley McFarland,Tomoaki Nishihara,Melissa J. Remis,Caroline E. G. Tutin +8 more
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TLDR
It was confirmed that the western gorilla diet is always eclectic, including up to 230 items and 180 species, and eight plant families provide important foods at five, or all six, sites, suggesting that it may be possible in the future to predict which habitats are the most suitable for gorillas.Abstract:
The objective of this paper is to collate information on western gorilla diet from six study sites throughout much of their current range, including preliminary information from two sites (Afi and Lossi), where studies of diet have begun only recently. Food lists were available from each site, derived from indirect signs of gorilla feeding (such as feces), with some observational data. Important staple, seasonal, and fallback foods have been identified, and a number of striking similarities across sites have been revealed based on a much larger data set than was previously available. It was confirmed that the western gorilla diet is always eclectic, including up to 230 items and 180 species. The greatest diversity is found among the fruit species eaten, fruit being included in western gorilla diets from all sites and throughout most or all of the year. Eight plant families provide important foods at five, or all six, sites, suggesting that it may be possible in the future to predict which habitats are the most suitable for gorillas. Gorillas exploit both rare and common forest species. Similarities and differences among sites can be explained superficially on the basis of geography and the past history of the forest. Gorilla density across sites appears to be most affected by the density of monocotyledonous bulk food plants, but its relationship to the density of important tree food species has yet to be tested.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Generation times in wild chimpanzees and gorillas suggest earlier divergence times in great ape and human evolution
Kevin E. Langergraber,Kay Prüfer,Carolyn Rowney,Christophe Boesch,Catherine Crockford,Katie A. Fawcett,Eiji Inoue,Miho Inoue-Muruyama,John C. Mitani,Martin N. Muller,Martha M. Robbins,Grit Schubert,Tara S. Stoinski,Bence Viola,David P. Watts,Roman M. Wittig,Richard W. Wrangham,Klaus Zuberbühler,Svante Pääbo,Linda Vigilant +19 more
TL;DR: The human–chimpanzee split is dated to at least 7–8 million years and the population split between Neanderthals and modern humans to 400,000–800,000 y ago, which suggests that molecular divergence dates may not be in conflict with the attribution of 6- to 7-million-y-old fossils to the human lineage and 400,,000-Y-old bones to the Neanderthal lineage.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reexamining Human Origins in Light of Ardipithecus ramidus
TL;DR: A proposed adaptive suite for the emergence of Ardipithecus from the last common ancestor that the authors shared with chimpanzees accounts for these principal ape/human differences, as well as the marked demographic success and cognitive efflorescence of later Plio-Pleistocene hominids.
BookDOI
Long-term field studies of primates
Peter M. Kappeler,David P. Watts +1 more
TL;DR: Long-term field studies have been used extensively in the literature to understand the behavioral plasticity and population dynamics of a critically endangered species, such as Cebus capucinus as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Molecular phylogenetics reveal multiple tertiary vicariance origins of the African rain forest trees.
TL;DR: Molecular phylogenetic dating analyses of this large pan-African clade of Annonaceae unravels an interesting pattern of diversification for rain forest restricted trees co-occurring in West/Central and East African rain forests.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social structure and life-history patterns in western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla).
Martha M. Robbins,Magdalena Bermejo,Chloé Cipolletta,Florence Magliocca,Richard J. Parnell,Richard J. Parnell,Emma J. Stokes +6 more
TL;DR: New data on western gorilla social structure and life histories from four study sites are presented, and comparisons with eastern gorilla populations are made, showing no significant differences in birth rates between western gorillas and mountain gorillas.
References
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Book
Five New World Primates: A Study in Comparative Ecology
TL;DR: This work is an intensive study of five species of New World monkeys--all omnivores with a diet of fruit and small prey; they differ widely in group size, social system, ranging patterns, and degree of territoriality.
Journal ArticleDOI
On the evolution of Ape Social Systems
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that group selection has no systematic effects on social behavior ideas such as social evolution, such as that social evolution occurs because the group gives safety from predators, the group enables individuals to find more food or a stable hierarchy brings peace to the group.
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Composition and variability of mountain gorilla diets in the Central Virungas
TL;DR: The gorillas' behavioral responses to environmental complexity lend general support to recent ideas concerning the evolution of their social system.
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Nationwide census of gorilla (gorilla g. gorilla) and chimpanzee (Pan t. troglodytes) populations in Gabon.
TL;DR: Gabon's large areas of undisturbed primary forest offer exceptional potential for conservation, not only of gorillas and chimpanzees, but also of the intact tropical rain forest ecosystems which they inhabit.
Journal ArticleDOI
Composition of the diet of chimpanzees and comparisons with that of sympatric lowland gorillas in the lopé reserve, gabon
TL;DR: The major differences between chimpanzee and gorilla diet at Lopé were the larger quantities of vegetative foods regularly eaten by gorillas and their ability to resort to a diet dominated by vegetative Foods when fruit was scarce, and the diets of the two species showed greatest divergence.