Special contribution"Out of the tropics: ecology of temperate primates"

半谷吾郎、Cyril C. Grueter、辻大和

霊長類は熱帯を中心に分布するため、温帯は霊長類にとって周縁的な生息環境である。日本の霊長類学者が60年以上に渡って研究してきたニホンザルは、温帯の霊長類の代表的な存在である。しかし、ニホンザル研究の成果を霊長類全般に一般化し、温帯が霊長類の生息環境としてどのような特徴を持ち、温帯の霊長類がそれに対してどのような適応をしているのかについて、まとまった論考がされたことはほとんどなかった。近年、日本以外の温帯での霊長類の研究が進展し、温帯全体という枠組みで比較研究を進める土台が整ってきた。われわれは、2010年に京都で行われた国際霊長類学会大会で温帯の霊長類の生態学的適応に関するシンポジウムを行い、その成果をもとにして、温帯の霊長類についての特集号を国際学術誌Primates誌上で出版した。43巻2号で5本の論文を掲載し、さらに2本の論文を次号で出版する予定である。これらの論文で、マカク、コロブス、テナガザルの食性、活動時間配分、遊動などについての基礎的な生態が、温帯特有の生物的、非生物的環境にどのように影響を受けるのかを明らかにするとともに、生息環境と植生についての比較研究を行った。これらの論文は、温帯の霊長類についてこれまでの知識を集積し、温帯という独自の環境に霊長類が適応するために必要となった適応についての仮説を提供する。本特集号は、これまで取り組まれてこなかった、温帯の霊長類の生態学的適応という重要な課題の礎となるものである。

Primates 54 (2)

The distribution of most non-human primates falls largely into tropical regions, butsome non-human primate taxa, e.g. some langurs, macaques, baboons, gibbons and lemurs, have successfully colonized temperate regionsin East Asia, North and South Africa, Madagascar and South America(Fleagle 1999). Therefore, it is expected that these species exhibit a variety of adaptations that help them to cope with the ecological demands associated with living in marginaltemperate habitats. Temperate-living primates are not necessarily less studied than tropical-living ones; for example, Japanese macaques have been studied atmany study sites in the Japanese archipelago for more than 60 years (Nakagawa et al. 2010) and their unique adaptations to coldness and strong seasonality, which are key characteristics of temperate habitats, have been well documented (Hori et al. 1977; Hanya 2004; Hanya et al. 2007). However, there have been few attempts to relate these findings tostudies in tropical areas and to generalize the characteristics of temperate forests and the ecological strategies of primates that live there.The recent remarkable progress in primate field studies in continental temperate Asia, in particular China, now enables us to synthesize the compiled findings and obtain a better understanding of the general characteristics of temperate primates. For that purpose, we organized a symposium under the name of this special contribution at the XXIII Congress of the International Primatological Society in Kyoto on September 16th, 2010. This special contribution is derived from the talks delivered at the symposium and complementedwith additionalpapers. Five papers (Hanya et al. 2013; Sayers 2013; Grueter et al. 2013; Fa et al. 2013; Minhas et al. 2013) are included in the current issue, and more will follow in a subsequent one. We have included original case studies on the ecology of various temperate primates, such as macaques, colobines and gibbons. Each study examines how temperate-specific biotic and abiotic factors affect basic ecological adaptations, such as diet, activity budgets, ranging patterns and social organization. We have also included two papers that use a comparative approach and contrast temperate and tropical primates in terms of theirhabitat and diet, respectively. These papers amalgamateand integrate the current knowledge which until now has been scattered over the literature and present hypotheses that predict the sorts of adaptationsthat are required for primates to live and thrive in temperate forests. We believe that this special contribution marks a milestone in this interesting, yet-to-be-explored topic and will encourage further research on a more diverse range of taxa and invarious geographic areas,thereby scrutinizing the validity of the ideas and hypotheses presented in our papers.

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