Monkeys and lemurs are coming down from the trees as climate warms up

Rising temperatures and deforestation are pushing tree-dwelling primates to spend extra time on the bottom looking for shade and water

By Madeleine Cuff

Tree-dwelling species of monkeys and lemurs are spending rising quantities of time on the forest flooring as they search refuge from rising temperatures.

Scientists say the shift from arboreal life is a “regarding” signal the primates are struggling to outlive in forests broken by human exercise and local weather change.

The warning follows a research based mostly on greater than 150,000 hours of observations of 47 tree-dwelling primate species residing throughout virtually 70 websites in Madagascar and the Americas.

Some primates, together with howler monkeys (genus Alouatta) and bamboo lemurs (genus Hapalemur), are spending extra time on the bottom in areas the place their forest is degraded and fragmented.

The findings are a sign that these animals are having to adapt their behaviour in response to local weather change and habitat loss, says Giuseppe Donati at Oxford Brookes College within the UK, a member of the research group.

He says the animals are being pressured to the bottom to hunt shade and water to recuperate from rising temperatures increased within the forest cover.

“In most tropical international locations the place these species reside, people log the forest,” he says. “This creates gaps and it opens the cover of the forest. That causes a rise in temperature.

“The deforestation is working along with local weather change [to force primates to the ground].”

Donati says he has seen first-hand how bamboo lemurs in Madagascar at the moment are spending round half their waking hours at floor stage.

“These bamboo lemurs normally reside within the forest and they’re tree-dwelling lemurs,” he says. “However within the south of Madagascar, a really fragmented space, these bamboo lemurs get out of the forest and so they graze the grass, a bit like little cows.”

Species that reside in giant teams and those who eat meals apart from fruit are among the many most certainly to spend extra time on the forest flooring, the research concluded.

It suggests these extra versatile species might be able to partially adapt their life in response to local weather change and habitat loss, no less than within the quick time period.

However Timothy Eppley on the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, a non-profit organisation based mostly in California, warns arboreal primates can’t adapt shortly sufficient to maintain tempo with deforestation and local weather change.

“Not one of the species we studied are prone to absolutely transition to a terrestrial life-style. It’s merely not a viable long-term end result to occur in such a brief time period,” he says.

“We have to actively defend the forest habitat that we at present have.”

Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2121105119

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