| The effectiveness of a seed disperser depends, among various factors still poorly understood for many Neotropical primates, on the amount of time seeds are retained within its digestive tract. This study tested the effects of sex, seed size and dietary fiber content on seed retention time in the digestive tract of black howler monkeys (Alouatta caraya). Experiments were performed using six captive individuals (three of each sex), six seed species distributed in three size classes (small, medium, and large), and three percentages of leaves in the diet (15, 30 and 60% of total food ingested). Retention times were recorded for 1767 recovered seeds, corresponding to 55% of the total ingested. More than 98% of these seeds were undamaged, suggesting the... |
