Rf. Kay et al., PRIMATE SPECIES RICHNESS IS DETERMINED BY PLANT PRODUCTIVITY - IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSERVATION, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 94(24), 1997, pp. 13023-13027
The explanation of patterns in species richness ranks among the most i
mportant tasks of ecology, Current theories emphasize the interaction
between historical and geographical factors affecting the size of the
regional species pool and of locally acting processes such as competit
ive exclusion, disturbance, productivity, and seasonality, Local speci
es richness, or alpha diversity, of plants and primary consumers has b
een claimed to peak in habitats of low and intermediate productivity,
which, if true, has major implications for conservation, Here, by cont
rast, we show that local richness of Neotropical primates (platyrrhine
s) is influenced by both historical biogeography and productivity but
not by tree species richness or seasonality, This pattern indicates th
at habitats with the highest plant productivity are also the richest f
or many important primary consumers, We show further that fragmentatio
n of Amazonian rain forests in the Pleistocene, if it occurred, appear
s to have had a negligible influence on primate alpha species richness
.