Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, 1089 Veterinary Medicine Dr., Davis, CA, 95616, USA. pmarty@ucdavis.edu
  • 2 Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, 1089 Veterinary Medicine Dr., Davis, CA, 95616, USA
  • 3 California National Primate Research Center, University of California, Davis, USA
  • 4 School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
  • 5 Adam Mickiewicz University, Anthropology Institute, Poznań, 61614, Poland
  • 6 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 7 Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, 171002, India
  • 8 IISER-TVM Centre for Research and Education in Ecology and Evolution (ICREEE), School of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram, Maruthamala P.O., Vithura, Thiruvananthapuram, 695551, India
Primates, 2020 Mar;61(2):249-255.
PMID: 31773350 DOI: 10.1007/s10329-019-00775-4

Abstract

In primates, living in an anthropogenic environment can significantly improve an individual's fitness, which is likely attributed to access to anthropogenic food resources. However, in non-professionally provisioned groups, few studies have examined whether individual attributes, such as dominance rank and sex, affect primates' ability to access anthropogenic food. Here, we investigated whether rank and sex explain individual differences in the proportion of anthropogenic food consumed by macaques. We observed 319 individuals living in nine urban groups across three macaque species. We used proportion of anthropogenic food in the diet as a proxy of access to those food resources. Males and high-ranking individuals in both sexes had significantly higher proportions of anthropogenic food in their diets than other individuals. We speculate that unequal access to anthropogenic food resources further increases within-group competition, and may limit fitness benefits in an anthropogenic environment to certain individuals.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.