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April 2019 - present
January 2006 - August 2011
September 2012 - present
Publications
Publications (60)
Parasitism, a widespread nutrient acquisition strategy among animals, results from a long evolutionary history where one species derives its metabolic needs from another. Parasites can significantly reduce host fitness, affecting reproduction, growth, and survivability. Vertebrate hosts exhibit defensive strategies against parasites, including “sic...
El estudio de la conducta lateralizada, a través del uso preferencial de las manos, puede proporcionar información sobre los mecanismos neuronales que rigen las habilidades motoras, la percepción y las funciones cognitivas. Varias especies de primates muestran preferencia manual a nivel de población, como los chimpancés (Pan troglodytes), macacos R...
Parasitism is a strong selective pressure, and its study is crucial for predicting the persistence of host species. Mantled howler monkeys are infected by the larvae of the bot fly Cuterebra baeri. This parasitosis produces myiasis and may have negative impacts on host health, although systematic information on the dynamics of this host‐parasite re...
Hand preference is the preferential use of one hand for a single task. Its study provides insight into the neural mechanisms underlying motor skills, perception, and cognitive functions. From a comparative perspective, it also offers a window into evolutionary history, shedding light on whether manual preferences stem from genetics, environmental i...
In seasonal environments, maintaining a constant body temperature poses challenges for endotherms. Cold winters at high latitudes, with limited food availability, create opposing demands on metabolism: upregulation preserves body temperature but depletes energy reserves. Examining endocrine profiles, such as thyroid hormone triiodothyronine (T3) an...
El moyocuil (Cuterebra baeri) es un díptero miasígeno de los monos aulladores de manto (Alouatta palliata). Esta interacción entre parásito y hospedero resulta en nódulos subdérmicos en los primates. Los efectos directos del moyocuil en su estado larvario y las infecciones secundarias generadas por otros dípteros afectan negativamente la salud de l...
The transformation and depletion of primary forest over the past few decades have placed almost half of the world's primate species under the threat of extinction. Developing any successful conservation program for primates requires distribution and demography data, as well as an understanding of the relationships between these factors and their ha...
The study of animal play is highly complex since its potential functions vary with social and environmental circumstances. Although play is generally characteristic of immature animals, it may persist in adults in its social form, particularly when interacting with young individuals, and less often with other adult playmates. We measured the amount...
Fragmented tropical forests can be highly dynamic, with the spatial configuration of forest patches changing through time. Yet, the lack of longitudinal studies limits our understanding of how patch dynamics affect biodiversity, especially when there is a time lag in species extinctions (extinction debt). We assessed how temporal changes in patch s...
Significance
Identifying and explaining regional differences in tropical forest dynamics, structure, diversity, and composition are critical for anticipating region-specific responses to global environmental change. Floristic classifications are of fundamental importance for these efforts. Here we provide a global tropical forest classification tha...
Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species. Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test theories about the evolution of human life history, cognition, and social behavior. Modern foragers, with their vast cultural and environmental diversity, have mostl...
Forager societies tend to value egalitarianism, cooperative autonomy, and sharing. Furthermore, foragers exhibit a strong gendered division of labor. However, few studies have employed a cross-cultural approach to understand how forager children learn social and gender norms. To address this gap, we perform a meta-ethnography, which allows for the...
This study presents a coproparasitological survey of free-ranging jaguars (Panthera onca) and pumas (Puma concolor) inhabiting 2 types of tropical forest in southeastern Mexico. We examined 167 fecal samples (68=jaguar; 33=puma; 66=unidentified large felids), and identified 16 parasitic taxa, 56% of which were nematodes. We compared parasite commun...
\textbf{Purpose:}$ Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species. Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test theories about the evolution of human life history, cognition, and social behaviour. Modern foragers, with their vast cultural and environmental d...
Selection is expected to favour the evolution of flexible metabolic strategies, in response to environmental conditions. Here, we use a non-invasive index of basal metabolic rate (BMR), faecal thyroid hormone (T3) levels, to explore metabolic flexibility in a wild mammal inhabiting a highly seasonal, challen- ging environment. T3 levels of adult ma...
Basal areas (m2) of tree species used by spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) for fruit consumption from six different sites located in the Lacandona rainforest, Mexico.
For each site, basal areas were estimated within twenty 50 x 2-m plots (0.2 ha).
(DOC)
Linear mixed models (LMMs) with a ΔAIC < 2 examining the effect of proximal and distal predictors of log-transformed fecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels of six groups of spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) inhabiting the Lacandona rainforest, Mexico.
Samples (nested within groups) and observation days (nested within sampling rounds) were specified...
The rapid loss, fragmentation and degradation of tropical forests threaten the survival of many animal species. However, the way in which these phenomena affect animal health has been poorly explored, thus limiting the design of appropriate conservation strategies. To address this, here we identified using linear mixed models the effect of proximal...
Understanding the way howler monkeys interact with other vertebrates has critical ecological, evolutionary, cognitive, and conservation implications. In this review, we completed an extensive search of the available data on interspecific howler encounters, including individual communications from field primatologists, in order to gain insight into...
Males often face a trade-off between investments in precopulatory and postcopulatory traits [1], particularly when male-male contest competition determines access to mates [2]. To date, studies of precopulatory strategies have largely focused on visual ornaments (e.g., coloration) or weapon morphology (e.g., antlers, horns, and canines). However, v...
Long-term field studies of primates are critical for our understanding of life history and the processes driving changes in demography. Here, we present the first long-term demographic data for the northernmost population of the mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliata). We followed 10 groups of howler monkeys living in a highly fragmented landscap...
Long-term field studies of primates are critical for our understanding of life history and the processes driving changes in demography. Here, we present the first long-term demographic data for the northernmost population of the mantled howler monkey ( Alouatta palliata ). We followed 10 groups of howler monkeys living in a highly fragmented landsc...
Understanding the response of species to changes in landscape configuration is required to design adequate management and conservation strategies. Yet, the most appropriate spatial scale (i.e., landscape size) to assess the response of species to changes in landscape configuration (so-called “scale of effect”) is largely unknown. In this paper, we...
Lianas are becoming an increasingly prominent component of tropical forests. This chapter evaluates the use of lianas by primates an abundant, species-rich, and ecologically important order of mammals. The great majority of primate species are highly arboreal, and they depend on the different strata above the forest floor for feeding, traveling, re...
There are a growing number of reports of antibiotic resistance (ATBR) in bacteria living in wildlife. This is a cause for concern as ATBR in wildlife represents a potential public health threat. However, little is known about the factors that might determine the presence, abundance and dispersion of ATBR bacteria in wildlife. Here, we used culture...
The Mexican howler monkey (Alouatta palliata mexicana) is a critically endangered primate, which is paleoendemic to Mexico. However, despite the potential significance of genetic data for its management and conservation, there have been no population genetic studies of this subspecies. To examine genetic diversity in the key remaining forest refuge...
Animals' responses to potentially threatening factors can provide important information for their conservation. Group size and human presence are potentially threatening factors to primates inhabiting small reserves used for recreation. We tested these hypotheses by evaluating behavioral and physiological responses in two groups of mantled howler m...
Environmental stressors impact physiology in many animal species. Accordingly, the monitoring of fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (fGCM) has been increasingly used to evaluate the physiological costs of habitat disturbance on wild animal populations, providing a powerful tool for conservation and management. Several studies have suggested that prim...
The region of Los Tuxtlas in the state of Veracruz, southeast Mexico, represents the northernmost limit of tropical rainforest in the Americas and is home to populations of two primate species, the Mexican howler monkey ( Alouatta palliata mexicana ) and the Mexican spider monkey ( Ateles geoffroyi vellerosus ). Los Tuxtlas, like many other regions...
We analyzed seven bot fly larvae extracted from six howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. The spine distribution and structure of the larvae were consistent with those reported for Cuterebra baeri from Panama. This report sets the northern limit for its distribution in the Americas.
Lianas are important components in the dynamics of tropical forests and represent fallback foods for some primates, yet little is known about their impact on primate ecology, behavior or fitness. Using 2 yr of field data, we investigated liana consumption and foraging effort in four groups of howler monkeys (two in bigger, more conserved forest fra...
The ecological-constraints model (ECM) proposes that group size is constrained by travel costs. This model has been seldom demonstrated in folivorous primates, and in the present study we tested it by performing a cross-study analysis (N = 13 studies) with populations of mantled howlers (Alouatta palliata) inhabiting several rainforest fragments of...
Little is known about how resource limitation affects the feeding ecology of primates in forest fragments. Here, we describe
seasonal variation in the diet and feeding effort of 2 groups (RH and RC3) of howlers (Alouatta palliata mexicana) living in different sized forest fragments in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. The RH group, which lived in a larger and m...
In order to better understand how patterns of parasitism in howler monkeys are affected by forest fragmentation, we carried out a 1 year survey of gastrointestinal parasites in fecal samples from three groups of Mexican howler monkeys inhabiting different forest fragments in the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. The study groups were chosen be...
Many animal populations are forced to inhabit very small forest patches, which may threaten their long-term survival. In some cases, animals in these forest remnants are able to supplement their diet by using resources outside of their home patch, a process named ‘landscape supplementation’. Although this is probably a key process for population su...
The threat that forest fragmentation and habitat loss presents for several Alouatta taxa requires us to determine the key elements that may promote the persistence of howler monkeys in forest fragments and to evaluate how changes in the availability of these elements may affect their future conservation prospects. In this study we analyzed the rela...
Habitat modification may have a less terminal impact on primate populations than its absolute loss, but the effects of changes in floristic structure may still be severe. A flexible foraging strategy may reflect the capacities of animals to respond to landscapes altered by human activity. We collected behavioural, ranging and foraging data from two...
This paper represents the results of a long-term study (1996-2003) on the demographic changes over time of a Mexican mantled howler (Alouatta palliata mexicana) group in a rainforest fragment (40 ha) in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico, with a follow-up census 3 years later (2006). In addition to demographic and life history parameters, we describe six dispersa...
Accelerated deforestation is causing the rapid loss and fragmentation of primary habitat for primates. Although the genus Alouatta is one of the most studied primate taxa under these circumstances, some results are contradictory and responses of howlers to habitat fragmentation are not yet clear. In this paper, we conduct a cross-study of the avail...
A growing amount of data shows that a preference for passive-nonaggressive over active-aggressive problem solving is associated with higher levels of glucocorticoids (GC). For mantled howlers, the arrival of an adult male in a new group is a potential source of psychological stress for both resident males and females. Resident mantled howler males...
Interactions between sympatric species are of particular interest for understanding the mechanisms that allow animal coexistence in the ecological community. The mantled howler monkey ( Alouatta palliata Gray) and the white-nosed coati ( Nasua narica Linnaeus) are similar-sized mammals with a sympatric distribution in the Neotropics (Nowak 1999). S...
The activity patterns and diet of howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata mexicana) were studied in 3 forest fragments in south-eastern Mexico: Playa Escondida (PLA), Agaltepec Island (AGA) and Arroyo Liza (LIZ). Intersite differences offered the opportunity to investigate the foraging adaptations of howler monkeys in response to population and habitat s...
The challenge hypothesis asserts that testosterone levels and aggression in male adult animals are closely associated with one another in the context of intense reproductive competition, particularly when males challenge one another for the access to females. For mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata), the presence of a solitary male in the vic...
This research focuses on identifying the principal habitat characteristics that influence the presence and abundance of mantled howlers in forest fragments. We provide information on the demography of several fragmented Alouatta palliata mexicana subpopulations at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico, and relate this to the biogeographical and floristic characteris...
Although howlers have been traditionally considered to be pacific, showing one of the lowest rates of aggression among primates, new evidence is emerging to question this image. We present data on injuries in Mexican mantled howlers (Alouatta palliata mexicana) in relation to different sociecological parameters. We censused howler populations in 19...
