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How Primates Eat
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How Primates Eat

A Synthesis of Nutritional Ecology across a Mammal Order

Edited by Joanna E. Lambert, Margaret A. H. Bryer, and Jessica M. Rothman

With a Foreword by T. H. Clutton-Brock and an Afterword by Alison Richard
Buy this book: How Primates Eat

How Primates Eat

A Synthesis of Nutritional Ecology across a Mammal Order

Edited by Joanna E. Lambert, Margaret A. H. Bryer, and Jessica M. Rothman

With a Foreword by T. H. Clutton-Brock and an Afterword by Alison Richard
Exploring everything from nutrients to food acquisition and research methods, a comprehensive synthesis of the study of diet and feeding in nonhuman primates.
 
What do we mean when we say that a diet is nutritious? Why can some animals get all the energy they need from eating leaves while others would perish on such a diet? Why don’t mountain gorillas eat fruit all day as chimpanzees do? Answers to these questions about food and feeding are among the many tasty morsels that emerge from this authoritative book. Informed by the latest scientific tools and millions of hours of field and laboratory work on species across the primate order and around the globe, this volume is an exhaustive synthesis of our understanding of what, why, and how primates eat. State-of-the-art information presented at physiological, behavioral, ecological, and evolutionary scales will serve as a road map for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners as they work toward a holistic understanding of life as a primate and the urgent conservation consequences of diet and food availability in a changing world.

760 pages | 128 halftones, 29 tables | 8 1/2 x 11 | © 2024

Biological Sciences: Behavioral Biology, Evolutionary Biology

Reviews

“This work absolutely is essential for graduate training in primatology. More broadly, because primate diets and ecology are better understood than those of any other mammalian order, the findings are relevant to understanding the feeding ecology of Mammalia. As a professional, I will have a copy on my shelf and will consult it often. This is one of the best and most tightly themed science books I have seen. It will be cited repeatedly and will be a gateway for the study of primate dietary ecology.”

Richard Frederick Kay, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University

“How Primates Eat is, at the same time, a masterly synthe­sis of current knowledge of primate nutritional ecology, a celebration of all that has been achieved over the last 50 years, and a road map for future research.”

T. H. Clutton-Brock, from the foreword

“This is an amazing book. . . . Where once the study of primate feeding (and, with rare exceptions, it was mainly just that) meant collecting ob­servations of behavior, today it (routinely, I’m tempted to say) encompasses energetics and nutrition, hormones and microbiomes, phytochemistry and physiology as well. . . . The journey is far from over, as the editors signal in their preface, but this book is surely a major milestone along the way.”

Alison Richard, from the afterword

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Table of Contents

Foreword

T. H. Clutton-Brock

Preface

Joanna E. Lambert, Margaret A. H. Bryer, and Jessica M. Rothman


Introduction: From Diets to Disturbance: The Evolution of Primate Feeding Studies

David J. Chivers and Kim R. McConkey


Part I. Finding, Building, and Using a Diet

Chapter 1: The Role of Macro- and Micronutrients in Primate Food Choice

Annika Felton and Joanna E. Lambert

Chapter 2: What Extant Primates Eat: A Global Survey

Joseph E. Hawes, Carlos A. Peres, and Andrew C. Smith

Chapter 3: The First Diet: Mother’s Milk

Katie Hinde, Lauren A. Milligan, and Gregory E. Blomquist

Chapter 4: Diet and the Energetics of Reproduction

Melissa Emery Thompson

Chapter 5: Primate Energy Requirements: Brains, Babies, or Behavior?

Alexandra R. DeCasien, Mary H. Brown, Stephen R. Ross, and Herman Pontzer

Chapter 6: Primate Senses: Finding and Evaluating Food

Amanda D. Melin and Carrie C. Veilleux

Chapter 7: Seasonality in Food Availability and Energy Intake

Cheryl D. Knott and Andrea L. DiGiorgio


Part II. Nutrients, Nutrition, and Food Processing

Chapter 8: Enzymes and Microbes of the Mammalian Gut: Toward an Integrated Understanding of Digestion

Joanna E. Lambert, Richard Mutegeki, and Katherine R. Amato

Chapter 9: Secondary Compounds in Primate Foods: Time for New Approaches

Eleanor M. Stalenberg, Jörg U. Ganzhorn, and William J. Foley

Chapter 10: Hormonally Active Phytochemicals in Primate Diets: Prevalence across the Order

Michael Wasserman, Marie-Lyne Després-Einspenner, Richard Mutegeki, and Tessa Steiniche

Chapter 11: Nutrition and Immune Function in Primates

Erin R. Vogel, Astri Zulfa, Sri Suci Utami Atmoko, and Lyle L. Moldawer

Chapter 12: Nutrition and Primate Life History

Carola Borries and Andreas Koenig


Part III. Food Acquisition and Nutrition in Social Environments

Chapter 13: Social Food Competition, Then and Now

Charles H. Janson

Chapter 14: Applying a Framework of Social Nutrition to Primate Behavioral Ecology

Margaret A. H. Bryer and Moreen Uwimbabazi

Chapter 15: Primate Cognitive Ecology: Challenges and Solutions to Locating and Acquiring Resources in Social Foragers

Paul A. Garber

Chapter 16: Feeding-Related Tool Use in Primates: S Systematic Overview

Jill D. Pruetz, Landing Badji, Stephanie L. Bogart, Stacy M. Lindshield, Papa Ibnou Ndiaye, and Kristina R. Walkup

Chapter 17: Hunting by Primates

David Watts

Chapter 18: Movement Ecology and Feeding Neighborhoods

Margaret C. Crofoot and Shauhin E. Alavi

Chapter 19: Foraging in a Landscape of Fear

Russell Hill

Chapter 20: Behavioral Flexibility and Diet

A. J. Hardie and Karen B. Strier


Part IV. Methods, Practice, and Application

Chapter 21: Measuring Food in the Field

Eckhard W. Heymann

Chapter 22: Wild Plant Food Chemistry

Nancy Lou Conklin-Brittain

Chapter 23: Evaluating Primate Diets with Stable Isotopes

Matt Sponheimer and Brooke Crowley

Chapter 24: Mechanical Properties of Primate Foods

Adam van Casteren and Peter Lucas

Chapter 25: Modeling Primate Nutrition

David Raubenheimer

Chapter 26: Reconstructing Fossil Primate Diets: Dental-Dietary Adaptations and Foodprints for Thought

Peter S. Ungar

Chapter 27: Food and Primate Carrying Capacity

Andrew J. Marshall

Chapter 28: Climate Change and Primate Nutritional Ecology

Jessica M. Rothman, John B. Makombo, and Mitchell T. Irwin

Chapter 29: Primate Foraging Strategies Modulate Responses to Anthropogenic Change and Thus Primate Conservation

Colin A. Chapman, Kim Valenta, Fabiola Espinosa-Gómez, Amélie Corriveau, and Sarah Bortolamiol


Afterword

Alison Richard

Acknowledgments

Literature Cited

List of Contributors

Index

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