Differential habitat use as a behavioral thermoregulatory strategy in lemurs
Abstract
In order to reduce the energetic cost of controlling internal body temperatures physiologically,
animals engage in “behavioral thermoregulatory activities.” These strategies include
changing postures, social huddling, and moving to different levels of the forest canopy
in response to environmental changes. For lemurs, behavioral thermoregulation can
be especially important to be able to cope with the daily and seasonal climatic variations
of their habitat because they have a lower basal metabolic rate than other primates.
In this study, we analyzed the patterns of temperature and humidity variation throughout
the forest at the Duke Lemur Center and then analyzed how individuals of Propithecus
coquereli and Lemur catta use these variations as a strategy for behavioral thermoregulation.
We found that generally temperatures tended to decrease deeper into the forest, with
a few deviations from this pattern during fall, and for different forest coverage.
We also found that humidity generally increased deeper into the forest, although this
pattern reversed for the deciduous enclosures during the fall months. When analyzing
how the lemurs use the forest in response to temperature variation, we found that
contrary to what we expected, individuals preferred to spend the majority of their
time at “edge” or “out” of the forest for all temperatures, and spent very little
time at the interior of the forest (30m or 60m). This was also the case when we controlled
for sun exposure levels. However, individuals did employ other behavioral thermoregulatory
strategies, including increasing extended postures during hotter temperatures and
increasing tucked postures during cooler ones, yet there was no clear relationship
between the employment of this strategy and the use of forest depth. Possible explanations
for the data were explored, including the effect of human interaction. In order to
establish more concise patterns for the use of microhabitat selection as a form of
behavioral thermoregulation, further research should increase the range of temperatures
and the length of the study.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Evolutionary AnthropologyPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8625Citation
Arcia Ramos, Jania (2014). Differential habitat use as a behavioral thermoregulatory strategy in lemurs. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8625.Collections
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