Distribution Patterns of Tropical Plant Foods as an Evolutionary Stimulus to Primate Mental Development

American Anthropologist - Tập 83 Số 3 - Trang 534-548 - 1981
Katharine Milton1,2
1KATHARINE MILTON is an Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. She has carried out a number of field studies on the ecology of New World primates in both Central and South America. Her particular interest has been the dietary strategies of larger Neotropical primate species, all of which eat a heavily plant-based diet. In her next field project, she will be examining human ecology in forests of the Amazon Basin. Her articles have appeared in a wide range of journals and she is the author of a recent book on the foraging behavior of howler monkeys.
2University of California, Berkeley

Tóm tắt

Primates are noted for their mental abilities but the selective basis for such traits has remained obscure. It is hypothesized that the element of predictability associated with the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of plant foods in tropical forests has served to stimulate mental development in primates taking much of their food from the first trophic level. Primates able to remember the locations and phenological patterns of a wide variety of plant foods could move directly to such foods when and where available without wasting time and energy in random search. This would enhance overall foraging success by lowering procurement costs associated with a varied and patchily distributed plant diet. Membership in a cohesive social unit, that utilized the same supplying area over many consecutive generations, would also enhance foraging success by serving to transmit important information about diet to close kin. Data on the foraging behavior of howler and spider monkeys are presented to test certain implications of this hypothesis. Similar selective pressures, but applied to foods from the second trophic level, may have been of critical importance in the mental development of hominids. [primates, evolution, intelligence, plant foods, Aleles, Alouatta]

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American Anthropologist

Tập 83 Số 3

534-548

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