Plant diversity in diet of Costa Rican Primates in contrasting habitats: a meta-analysis

Abstract

In human-modified tropical landscapes, the survival of arboreal vertebrates, particularly primates, depends on their plant dietary diversity. Here, we assessed diversity of plants included in the diet of Costa Rican non-human primates, CR-NHP (i.e. Alouatta palliata palliata, Ateles geoffroyi, Cebus imitator, and Saimiri oerstedii) inhabiting different habitat types across the country. Specifically, we assessed by analyzing 37 published and unpublished datasets: (i) richness and dietary -plant diversity, (ii) the {beta}-diversity of dietary plant species and the relative importance of plant species turnover and nestedness contributing to these patterns, and (iii) the main ecological drivers of the observed patterns in dietary plant . Diet data were available for 34 Alouatta, 16 Cebus, 8 Ateles, and 5 Saimiri groups. Overall dietary plant species richness was higher in Alouatta (476 spp.), followed by Ateles (329 spp.), Cebus (236 spp.), and Saimiri (183 spp.). However, rarefaction curves showed that -diversity of plant species was higher in Ateles than in the other three primate species. The {gamma}-diversity of plants was 868 species (95% C.I.=829-907 species). The three most frequently reported food species for all CR-NHP were Spondias mombin, Bursera simaruba, and Samanea saman. In general, plant species turnover, rather than nestedness, explained the dissimilarity in plant diet diversity ({beta}sim> 0.60) of CR_NHP. Finally, primate species, habitat type (life zone and disturbance level) and, to a lesser degree, sampling effort were the best predictors of the dietary plant assemblages. Our findings suggest that CR-NHP diets were diverse, even in severely-disturbed habitats.