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Dryad

Palm-primate interactions: Number of palm species and palm species identity in primate diets according to region (Africa, Asia, Madagascar, Neotropics); Parts of palm species consumed by primates according to region; palm species of high importance in primate diets according to region; palm seed dispersal by primates according to region

Cite this dataset

Heymann, Eckhard W.; Fuzessy, Lisieux F. (2020). Palm-primate interactions: Number of palm species and palm species identity in primate diets according to region (Africa, Asia, Madagascar, Neotropics); Parts of palm species consumed by primates according to region; palm species of high importance in primate diets according to region; palm seed dispersal by primates according to region [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z08kprr9g

Abstract

We compiled data on palms in the diets of primates and on palm seed dispersal by primates to criticially discuss the hypothesis by Onstein et al. 2020 (Proc R Soc B) that "the interactions between primates and palms are related to the co-evolutionary dynamics of primate colour vision systems and palm fruit colours". Our copilation of data on interactions between palms and primates suggests that the mutualism-dependent co-diversification scenario deployed by Onstein et al. is not supported in view of the low
level of extant primate-palm interactions in Africa.

Methods

Data were compiled by surveying primate food plant species lists and lists of plant species dispersed by primates in primatological journals and by searching in the Web of Science and in Google Scholar with the key words “[primate genus name]” and “diet” or “seed dispersal”. Additionally we searched with the key words “palm*” or “Arecaceae” and “seed dispersal”. We also screened references quoted in search results that were not captured by the search in Web of Science and Google Scholar. To examine how representative our dataset is we compared the number of primate species per geographic region (Africa, Asia, Madagascar, Neotropics) for which we found data with the number of primate species per region recoginized by the IUCN-SSC Primate Specialist Group.