Claudia BarelliUniversity of Florence | UNIFI · Dipartimento di Biologia
Claudia Barelli
PhD in Animal Biology
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55
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
May 2020 - present
January 2014 - present
October 2010 - December 2016
Publications
Publications (55)
Although male and female mammals differ in biological traits and functional needs, the contribution of this sexual dimorphism to variations in gut bacteria and fungi (gut microbiota) in relation to habitat type has not been fully examined. To understand whether the combination of sex and habitat affects gut microbiota variation, we analyzed 40 feca...
Vocalizations differ substantially between the sexes in many primates, and low-frequency male vocalizations may be favored by sexual selection because they intimidate rivals and/or attract mates. Sexual dimorphism in fundamental frequency may be more pronounced in species with more intense male mating competition and in those with large group size,...
Anthropogenic activities driving tropical forests' loss imperil global biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services. In this context, systematic monitoring programs evaluating wildlife trends are essential. Non‐human primates are relevant conservation targets since they represent vital components of tropical forests by serving as pollinators an...
The current decline of mammals worldwide makes quantitative population assessments crucial, especially for range-restricted and threatened species. However, robust abundance estimations are challenging for elusive or otherwise difficult to detect species. Alternative metrics requiring only presence/absence data, that is, occupancy, are possible but...
The mammalian gastrointestinal tract harbours a highly complex ecosystem composed of a variety of micro- (bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoans) and macro-organisms (helminths). Although most microbiota research focuses on the variation of single gut components, the crosstalk between components is still poorly characterized, especially in hosts livi...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225142.].
The factors that influence the diversity and composition of raw milk and fecal microbiota in healthy commercial dairy herds are not fully understood, partially because the majority of metataxonomic studies involve experimental farms and/or single factors. We analyzed the raw milk and fecal microbiota of 100 healthy cows from 10 commercial alpine fa...
In light of the current biodiversity crisis, investigating the human impact on non-human primate gut biology is important to understanding the ecological significance of gut community dynamics across changing habitats and its role in conservation. Using traditional coproscopic parasitological techniques, we compared the gastrointestinal protozoan a...
Gut microbiota diversity has become the subject of extensive research in human and nonhuman animals, linking diversity and composition to gut function and host health. Because wild primates are good indicators of tropical ecosystem health, we developed the idea that they are a suitable model to observe the consequences of advancing global change (e...
Gastrointestinal parasites colonizing the mammalian gut influence the host immune system and health. Parasite infections, mainly helminths, have been studied intensively in both humans and non-human animals, but relatively rarely within a conservation framework. The Udzungwa red colobus monkey (Procolobus gordonorum) is an endangered endemic primat...
Although the diversity of microbial communities (microbiota) inhabiting body niches are of proven importance to health in both humans and non-human animals, the functional importance of these collective genomes (microbiome) to the adaptive potential of their hosts has only recently been considered within a conservation framework. If loss of gut bio...
Accurate estimations of the abundance of threatened animal populations are required for assessment of species’ status and vulnerability and conservation planning. However, density estimation is usually difficult and resource demanding, so researchers often collect data at local scales. However, anthropogenic pressures most often have landscape‐leve...
The application of distance sampling to primate density estimation is challenging and susceptible to estimation biases, mainly due to the difficulties of properly accounting for variation in species' detectability and of accurately sampling the spread of the social groups. We apply a hierarchical distance sampling approach to primate data, to accou...
Hunting and habitat degradation are the most important, pan-tropical threats driving primates' extinction risk. While they often co-occur, they have different impacts when considered alone. Habitat degradation, mostly resulting from encroaching agriculture and logging, has a complex impact on primates, with room for variable resilience, depending o...
Nonhuman primates, our closest biological relatives, play important roles in the livelihoods, cultures, and religions of many societies and offer unique insights into human evolution, biology, behavior, and the threat of emerging diseases. They are an essential component of tropical biodiversity, contributing to forest regeneration and ecosystem he...
Spatially explicit models of animal abundance are a critical tool to inform conservation planning and management. However, they require the availability of spatially diffuse environmental predictors of abundance, which may be challenging, especially in complex and heterogeneous habitats. This is particularly the case for tropical mammals, such as n...
Leaf swallowing behavior, known as a form of self-medication for the control of nematode and tapeworm infection, occurs widely in all the African great apes (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, P. t. troglodytes, P. t. verus, P. t. vellerosus, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla graueri), except mountain gorillas. It is also reported to occur in a similar co...
Spatially explicit models of animal abundance are a critical tool to inform conservation planning and management. However, they require the availability of spatially diffuse environmental predictors of abundance, which may be challenging, especially in complex and heterogeneous habitats. This is particularly the case for tropical mammals, such as n...
Gibbons
and siamang
(family Hylobatidae
) are the smallest of the extant apes and have geographically always been restricted to Asia. Their origin dates back to the beginning of the middle Miocene
about 16.2 mya, a critical time when ape and human ancestors greatly diversified and when hominoids
had left the African continent for the first time. Th...
Gibbons and siamang (family Hylobatidae ) are the smallest of the extant apes and have geographically always been restricted to Asia. Their origin dates back to the beginning of the middle Miocene about 16.2 mya, a critical time when ape and human ancestors greatly diversified and when hominoids had left the African continent for the first time. Th...
In many primates, including humans, the vocalizations of males and females differ dramatically, with male vocalizations and vocal anatomy often seeming to exaggerate apparent body size. These traits may be favoured by sexual selection because low-frequency male vocalizations intimidate rivals and/or attract females, but this hypothesis has not been...
Accurate density estimations of threatened animal populations is essential for management and conservation. This is particularly critical for species living in patchy and altered landscapes, as is the case for most tropical forest primates. In this study, we used a hierarchical modelling approach that incorporates the effect of environmental covari...
Best selected model detection functions for RC (Figure A), covariates effect on density estimation shown for BW and SY (Figure B) and spatially explicit modelling of animal density in MG, MT and US (Figure C).
(PDF)
The expansion of agriculture is shrinking pristine forest areas worldwide, jeopardizing the persistence of their wild inhabitants. The Udzungwa red colobus monkey (Procolobus gordonorum) is among the most threatened primate species in Africa. Primarily arboreal and highly sensitive to hunting and habitat destruction, they provide a critical model t...
Conspicuous sexual swellings in the females of some primate species have been a focus of scientific interest since Darwin first wrote about them in 1871. To understand these visual signals, research focused on exaggerated sexual swellings of Old World primates. However, some primate species develop much smaller sexual swellings and it is as yet unc...
Habitat loss and fragmentation inevitably cause biodiversity decline, a major concern for the conservation of
endangered species. Primates are of particular interest, because they are highly vulnerable to forest fragmentation.
In this study, we investigated faecal glucocorticoid measurements (FGCM), an indicator of physiological
stress, in an endem...
With persistent degradation of tropical forests creating fragmented landscapes,
the study of patterns of primate responses to habitat changes is of increasing
conservation relevance. We modeled primate abundance in the Udzungwa Mountains
of Tanzania through a landscape approach, i.e., one that includes a representative range
of discrete forest bloc...
Among geographical factors causing variations in animal population abundance, elevation gradients have received little attention. For nonhuman primates in particular, very scattered information is available. We have investigated changes in population abundance across an elevational gradient in four nonhuman primate species (Udzungwa red colobus, An...
Estimates of population density and abundance are essential for the assessment of nonhuman primate conservation status, especially in view of increasing threats. We undertook the most extensive systematic primate survey yet of the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, an outstanding region for primate endemism and conservation in Africa. We used distance...
FLEXIBLE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF TARSIERS AND WHITE-HANDED GIBBONS
U. H. Reichard1 and C. Barelli2,3
1Southern Illinois University, Department of Anthropology and Center for Ecology, Carbondale, IL 62901-4502, USA, 2MUSE-Museo delle Scienze, Trento, Italy, 3Reproductive Biology Unit, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göt...
GENETIC MATING SYSTEM OF WHITE-HANDED GIBBONS (HYLOBATES LAR)
K. Matsudaira1,2, C. Barelli3,4, T. Wolf4, C. Roos4, M. Heistermann4, K. Hodges4, T. Ishida2, S. Malaivijitnond1 and U. H. Reichard5
1Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 2The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, 3MUSE - Museo delle Scienze, Trento, Italy, 4German Primate Center, G...
Animal vocal signals may provide information about senders and mediate important social interactions like sexual competition, territory maintenance and mate selection. Hence, it is important to understand whether vocal signals provide accurate information about animal attributes or status. Gibbons are non-human primates that produce loud, distincti...
Knowledge of the genetic mating system of animal species is essential for our understanding of the evolution of social systems and individual reproductive strategies. In recent years, genetic methods have uncovered an unexpected diversity of paternal genetic contributions across diverse animal social mating systems, but particularly in pair-living...
Determining the effect on abundance of habitat features and human impact is a pervasive goal in animal ecology. This objective is especially important in non-human primates, as they are globally threatened by habitat changes and direct anthropogenic disturbance. We address this question on three selected monkey species in the Udzungwa Mountains of...
Vocal signals in animals may provide information about senders and thus it is important to understand whether vocal signals provide accurate information about animal attributes or status. Gibbons are non-human primates producing loud and melodious vocalizations. They are also characterized by flexibility in social organisation and both monogamous a...
Although gibbons (family Hylobatidae) are typically monogamous, polyandrous groups occur regularly. Stress associated with elevated intragroup competition among males in polyandrous groups may increase susceptibility to infectious disease. To better understand this interplay, as well as to provide the first comprehensive assessment of parasitism in...
Despite the central role of testosterone in influencing many aspects of the male life cycle, information on the influence of social and behavioral factors associated with androgen output is available for only a few primate species, mainly those living in multimale–multifemale societies. We collected 322 fecal samples and measured fecal testosterone...
Long-term field research on wild animals is essential for understanding life history and social systems of long-lived organisms
like primates. Gibbons (family Hylobatidae) live surprisingly slow lives, given their relatively small body mass. Following
an approximately 7-year-long juvenile period, one of the longest among all primates, Khao Yai whit...
Biological market theory is an extension of the idea of reciprocal altruism, as a mechanism to explain altruistic acts between unrelated individuals in a more flexible system of exchanging commodities. In nonhuman primates, social grooming has been used to test predictions in both contexts: reciprocal altruism or biological markets. Specifically, i...
Among primates, great apes have the most extended life histories and they also appear socially specialized because of their
flexible association patterns and sociosexual relationships. Researchers have hypothesized that such subtle social commonalities
in combination with a slow life pace lead to great apes advanced cognition. Small apes, in contra...
Summary One of the disadvantages of group life is competition over food. How this conflict is solved is an interesting issue for sexually monomorphic species, with co-dominant sexes. Since fe- male mammals, particularly primate females with long gestation and lactation periods, have higher reproductive costs, the question arises how this increased...
White-handed gibbons usually live in monogamous pairs, but at Khao Yai National Park, Thailand groups often contain two adult males. We studied mating and sexual behaviour (i.e. proceptivity, receptivity and attractivity) of 12 females in relation to the females' fertile phases as assessed by faecal progestogen analysis. Females' mating activity, i...
Conspicuous sexual swellings in the females of some primate species have been a focus of scientific interest since Darwin first wrote about them in 1871. To understand these visual signals, research focused on exaggerated sexual swellings of Old World primates. However, some primate species develop much smaller sexual swellings and it is as yet unc...
We investigated whether Thalamita crenata, a swimming crab found on the East African intertidal flats, uses landmarks to locate its refuges. We modified the visual panorama of an intertidal flat, using conspicuous movable objects, and conducted homing trials with the local population of swimming crabs. In the first set of trials, after being moved...