The Role of Tools in the Feeding Ecology of Bearded Capuchins Living in Mangroves

Cost-Benefit Trade-Offs of Aquatic Resource Exploitation in the Context of Hominin Evolution

“…Differences in aquatic fauna exploitation have been described between chacma baboons troops (Papio ursinus) living at Cape Reserve-which fed on marine invertebrates (Hall, 1962;Lewis and O'Riain, 2019)-and groups inhabiting the Namib desert, which fed on fish from drying desert pools (Hamilton and Tilson, 1985). In addition, this pattern can also hold true for certain species of Pan-American monkeys, such as bearded capuchins (Sapajus libidinosus), which have also been recorded to forage on either marine invertebrates (Santos et al, 2019b) or fishes (Mendes et al, 2000), depending on the studied site.…”

“…Besides its specificity regarding the target food item, tool-assisted aquatic resource foraging techniques can also vary within species across different locations. For example, bearded capuchins have been documented to employ different toolassisted foraging techniques to obtain aquatic foods in distinct study sites, such as the use of baits to prey on fish (Mendes et al, 2000) and shell cracking through percussion (Santos et al, 2019b). In the first case, fishing capuchins would either place food baits under water or hold them partially submerged to attract pond fish, subsequently assuming a fishing body posture that allowed the individual to observe and attempt to capture approaching fishes that were attracted to the bait (Mendes et al, 2000).…”

“…In the first case, fishing capuchins would either place food baits under water or hold them partially submerged to attract pond fish, subsequently assuming a fishing body posture that allowed the individual to observe and attempt to capture approaching fishes that were attracted to the bait (Mendes et al, 2000). Invertebrate foraging individuals, on the other hand, used branches as hammers to crack the shells of marine invertebrates in order to forage on them (Santos et al, 2019b). Nevertheless, similarities in techniques used for foraging on aquatic resources have also been observed across sites located at great distances from each other, showing that some of these behaviors can also be geographically widespread.…”

“…This is the case in some chimpanzee populations which have been observed to employ comparable scooping on foraging for algae in a variety of sites throughout Western (Matsuzawa, 1996;Boesch et al, 2017) and Central Africa (Devos et al, 2002), all of which included some form of tool selection or modification. Lastly, alike other innovations, behaviors related to the exploitation of aquatic foods can be invented, lost, independently reinvented, acquired through social learning and adapted to and from other tasks unrelated to aquatic foraging (Nishida et al, 2009;Shumaker et al, 2011;Russon et al, 2014;Bandini and Tennie, 2017;Luncz et al, 2017;Mallick, 2019;Santos et al, 2019b). Therefore, in some cases, such behaviors can potentially develop into local traditions with respect to (i) the social position of individuals partaking in it (e.g., Koops et al, 2019), (ii) the type of resource consumed (Matsuzawa, 1996(Matsuzawa, , 2019Koops et al, 2019), and possibly (iii) the technique used to obtain it (e.g., algae feeding behavior as described in Sakamaki, 1998;Devos et al, 2002;Boesch et al, 2017, albeit the evidence described in Sakamaki, 1998 stems from only one female chimpanzee who was hypothesized to have acquired her distinct algae feeding behavior from her natal group).…”

Brazilian mangroves at risk

“…Many animal phyla and species use mangrove forests, such as molluscs, arthropods, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals (Giesen et al 2006). For example, sixty-seven primate taxa, most of them exhibiting rare behaviors shelter or feed in tropical and subtropical mangroves (Supriatna & Wahono 2000, Santos et al 2019, Presotto et al 2020. The high productivity rates of mangrove ecosystems are crucial for the benthic and pelagic components of neritic food webs (Robertson et al 1992), providing direct and indirect resources (Tomlinson 1986, Luther & Greenberg 2009 for transient fishes and crustaceans as nursery and foraging habitats (El-Regal & Ibrahim 2014, Hutchison et al 2014, Sheaves 2017, Litvin et al 2018.…”