Glucocorticoids and behavior in non-human primates: A meta-analytic approach to unveil potential coping mechanisms.

Glucocorticoids (GCs) mediate responses to energetic and psychosocial challenges and are associated with behavioral adjustments that form part of an adaptive vertebrate stress response. GCs and behavior can indirectly influence each other, leading to either an intensification or attenuation of stress responses. Exploring these GC-behavior relationships may offer insights into the beneficial aspects of behavior and help identify coping mechanisms that potentially enhance individual fitness.

MelastomaTRAITs 1.0: A database of functional traits in Melastomataceae, a large pantropical angiosperm family.

The recent availability of open-access repositories of functional traits has revolutionized trait-based approaches in ecology and evolution. Nevertheless, the underrepresentation of tropical regions and lineages remains a pervasive bias in plant functional trait databases, which constrains large-scale assessments of plant ecology, evolution, and biogeography. Here, we present MelastomaTRAITs 1.

Loss of species and functions in a deforested megadiverse tropical forest.

Tropical species richness is threatened by habitat degradation associated with land-use conversion, yet the consequences for functional diversity remain little understood. Progress has been hindered by difficulties in obtaining comprehensive species-level trait information to characterize entire assemblages and insufficient appreciation that increasing land-cover heterogeneity potentially compensates for species loss. We examined the impacts of tropical deforestation associated with land-use heterogeneity on bird species richness, functional redundancy, functional diversity, and associated components (i.

Linking howler monkey ranging and defecation patterns to primary and secondary seed dispersal.

To define the chances of a dispersed seed to produce a new recruit, it is essential to consider all stages of the dispersal process. Howler monkeys are recognized to have positive impacts on forest regeneration, acting as primary dispersers. Furthermore, dung beetles attracted to their feces protect the seeds against predators, and provide a better microenvironment for germination due to the removal of fecal matter, to seed burial, and/or by reducing the spatial aggregation of seeds in fecal clumps.

Phylogenetic congruence between Neotropical primates and plants is driven by frugivory.

Seed dispersal benefits plants and frugivores, and potentially drives co-evolution, with consequences to diversification evidenced for, e.g., primates.