The role of the density of food source-bearing fruit in the foraging strategy adopted for a small-bodied South American primate

Foraging strategies can be modeled using different factors, such as the location of sleeping sites and the availability of food. This study characterized the sleeping trees and identified the foraging strategies, based on the MCPF (Multiple Central Place Foraging) and CPF (Central Place Foraging), of a Callicebus coimbrai group in the Mata do Junco Wildlife Refuge in Sergipe, Brazil. We calculated the density of food source-bearing fruit and measured the Euclidean distance between feeding and sleeping trees. March and April presented a higher density of food source-bearing fruits, and June and August a lower density. During the high-density period, there was a high rate of re-use of sleeping trees, and distances from the last feeding source and first feeding sources in a subsequent morning were shorter for MCPF than CPF. Conversely, in the low-density period, there was a low frequency of sleeping tree reuse, and the distances from MCPF and CPF were twice as long. Such factors indicated that C. coimbrai employed the MCPF strategy during the high-density period. These findings should support the restoration of degraded areas through the use of identified plant species to facilitate the movement and increase sleeping tree options for this arboreal primate.