Identifying environmental versus phylogenetic correlates of behavioural ecology in gibbons: implications for conservation management of the world's rarest ape

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• 作者：Jessica V. Bryant ; Valérie A. Olson ; Helen J. Chatterjee…
• 关键词：Comparative analysis ; Group size ; Hainan gibbon ; Home range ; Hylobatidae ; Lambda ; Mating system ; Nomascus hainanus ; Phylogenetic signal
• 刊名：BMC Evolutionary Biology
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：December 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：15
• 期：1
• 全文大小：648 KB
• 刊物主题：Evolutionary Biology; Animal Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; Entomology; Genetics and Population Dynamics; Life Sciences, general;
• 出版者：BioMed Central
• ISSN：1471-2148

文摘

Background For conservation of highly threatened species to be effective, it is crucial to differentiate natural population parameters from atypical behavioural, ecological and demographic characteristics associated with human disturbance and habitat degradation, which can constrain population growth and recovery. Unfortunately, these parameters can be very hard to determine for species of extreme rarity. The Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus), the world’s rarest ape, consists of a single population of c.25 individuals, but intensive management is constrained by a limited understanding of the species’ expected population characteristics and environmental requirements. In order to generate a more robust evidence-base for Hainan gibbon conservation, we employed a comparative approach to identify intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of variation in key ecological and behavioural traits (home range size, social group size, mating system) across the Hylobatidae while controlling for phylogenetic non-independence.