Altitudinal and Seasonal Variation in the Structure of Nocturnal Primate Assemblages on Mount Cameroon
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Altitudinal and Seasonal Variation in the Structure of Nocturnal Primate Assemblages on Mount Cameroon Nestor T. Fominka, et al. [full author details at the end of the article] Received: 26 May 2020 / Accepted: 7 September 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Mountain ecosystems cover a large proportion of Earth and represent important environments for a range of different taxa, including nocturnal primates. This group of primates is generally understudied because of their small size and their cryptic and nocturnal nature. Thus, much of their ecology and distribution still remains unknown, especially in mountain ecosystems. We investigated the effects of altitude and seasonality (wet vs. dry season) on observed species richness and relative abundance of nocturnal primates across the diverse forest types of Mount Cameroon. Using standardized line and recce transect methodologies, we surveyed nocturnal primates at four altitudes (650 m.a.s.l., 1100 m.a.s.l., 1450 m.a.s.l., and 2200 m.a.s.l.) on the southwestern slope of the mountain. We recorded six species (four from the Galagidae family and two from the Lorisidae family). Our results indicate a decrease in primate abundance as altitude increases. We also found that primate species composition changes with altitude. However, species diversity (Shannon diversity) drops drastically only at the highest altitude and species richness (number of species) does not differ between sites at lower to mid-altitudes. There was no seasonality effect on primate diversity. Habitat features, such as temperature, resource availability, and vegetation structure likely play a relevant role in the distribution and diversity patterns of primates on Mount Cameroon. Keywords Diversity . Montane . Species abundance . Strepsirrhine . West Africa
Introduction Nearly one quarter of the globe’s land surface is covered with mountains, which include biodiversity hotspots representing important environments for the existence of almost a third of all terrestrial species (Korner 2007; Spehn et al. 2011), including primates. More than 40% of the world’s primate species occur in forests at altitudes
Nestor T. Fominka and Hernani F. M. Oliveira contributed equally to this work. Handling Editor: Joanna Setchell Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-02000179-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
N.T. Fominka et al.
>1000 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.) (Lehman 2014). Although altitudinal patterns of biodiversity have received increasing attention in recent decades (Brown 2001; McCain 2005; Williams et al. 1995; Willig and Presley 2016), these trends still remain understudied for many primate species. This is especially true for nocturnal species, which often occur in remote locations and are hard to detect during night surveys. Nocturnal primates in mainland Africa account for more than 30% of all primate species (35 species from Galagidae and Lorisid
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