Socioecology of Adult Female Vervet Cercopithecus Aethiops and Patas Monkeys Erythrocebus Patas in Kenya: Food Availability, Feeding Competition, and Dominance Relationships

The dominance hierarchy of female vervet and patas monkeys was similar when both used an A. drepanolobium woodland habitat. Foods here were randomly and closely distributed in space and less abundant per feeding site compared to foods in the A. xanthophloea riverine habitat, a second habitat used by vervet monkeys. The hierarchy exhibited by female vervet monkeys in the woodland habitat was not significantly linear, and the hierarchy of female patas monkeys was significantly linear only when females who had recently entered the hierarchy or had been observed for only a few months were deleted from analyses. In the A. xanthophloea riverine habitat, the dominance hierarchy of female vervet monkeys was statistically linear. Food-related competition also produced a significantly linear hierarchy among female vervet monkeys, but only when all food-related agonism was considered, including interactions that occurred in the A. drepanolobium habitat. In the riverine habitat, almost half of all female agonism among vervet monkeys was not food-related. The link between ecology and behavior at the level proposed by models of female primate social behavior (i.e., relationships) is more complex than these models ascertain. The models adequately predicted when adult female dominance relationships in patas and vervet monkeys would be nepotistic or egalitarian in a superficial sense only. Gross categorization of patterns of food availability are not adequate to explain female primate social behavior.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Pruetz, Jill Daphne

Contributors dc:contributor

• Paul Garber

• Biology, Ecology

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9944972

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85323