Primate study explores what eats what, and when

Mushrooms may not be the first food that comes to mind when we imagine the regimes of wild primates – or our first human ancestors. We tend to consider green fruits and leaves as favorite foods for monkeys and monkeys.

But our new study by the Issa valley in western Tanzania highlights a surprising and potentially crucial role for mushrooms in primates. Our results are published in the journal Ecology and evolution.

For almost two decades, our work focused on what a Savanne-Woodland primate means being in East Africa. Far from their cousins ​​living in the forest, these populations are exposed to higher temperatures, as well as to the vegetation of woods and meadows where they can find food – or be in danger of predators such as wild dogs and hyenas.

In general, we are interested in competition between species. For example, how do baboons and small monkeys avoid larger (and predators) chimpanzees when you are looking for ripe fruit? Mushrooms can provide an answer.

We have found that if the three species of primates under study consumed fungi, their use and their dependence differ throughout the year. Mushrooms were significant seasonally for monkeys and red -tailed chimpanzees, becoming a rescue food when ripe fruit was rare, despite representing globally that 2% of their diet. For baboons, mushrooms were a favorite food, with mushrooms forming more than a tenth of their diet despite being available for only half of the year.

Our results have not only highlighted the way primates rely and respond to their environment, but also alludes to the evolutionary roots of human mycophagy (mushroom diet). Mushrooms have been neglected in research on ancient regimes because they do not fossilize well and do not leave few traces in the archaeological file.

By examining which foods are consumed by primates, we can better reconstruct scenarios of the way in which the first human species can have contributed with each other.

Issa mushrooms of food

During four years, we have observed three species of cohabitants – deshimpanze, yellow baboons and red tail monkeys – regularly consuming mushrooms.

We used more than 50,000 food observations among the three species and found that consumption of fungi was not only accessory. While chimpanzees and red tail monkeys ate mushrooms mainly during the rainy season, when availability culminated, baboons consumed mushrooms much longer, even when they were relatively rare.

In fact, for two months of the year, mushrooms represented more than 35% of baboons regimes, which suggests that it is a favorite food, not only consumed during the fruit scorce periods, as we suggest for chimpanzees and red tail monkeys.

The chimpanzees and red -tailed monkeys, on the other hand, treated mushrooms as a seasonal supplement, precious when the fruits were less abundant. This nuanced difference suggests that mushrooms play different roles within this community of primates, depending on ecological strategies and the dynamics of competition.

Avoid conflicts through mushrooms

One of the most intriguing ideas to emerge from our study is the concept of niche partitioning: how animals adapt their diet to minimize competition. It is a well -established phenomenon which can manifest itself in various ways, species of birds occupying different heights of canopy, with carnivores targeting different prey.

In the habitats where several species coexist, finding your own food niche can be the key to survival. At ISSA, baboons, chimpanzees and guenons (monkeys) can all use fungi strategically to improve diet efficiency and reduce tensions with each other because they respond to periods when ripe (preferred) fruits are insufficient for the three species.

What does this mean for us?

The implications of these results extend far beyond west Tanzania. First of all, they highlight how fungi can serve as a rich and seasonal food source, even for large mammals, providing proteins, micronutrients and potentially medicinal advantages. This provides support to theories that mushrooms may have played an important role in the diet of the first hominins.

In fact, Issa’s habitat resembles the type of mosaic wood landscape where human ancestors have evolved. If our parents of primates today exploit mushrooms in this environment, it is plausible that Australopithecus, Homo Habilis and other first human species did it too.

Despite this, mushrooms are often overlooked in the reconstructions of ancient regimes, largely because they do not fossilize well and do not leave few traces. However, the ancient DNA of Neanderthal dental plaque approximately 40,000 years ago revealed traces of mushrooms, attractive clues that mushrooms were more at the heart of prehistoric life than we thought before.

Caution and a call

The study also raises important questions about the coexistence of human life. In many regions of Tanzania, mushrooms are harvested by people and sold on local markets. As climate change and the growth of the human population exerts pressure on wild resources, competition between humans and fauna on edible fungi can increase. Understand who eats what and when they could help these shared resources manage in a sustainable way.

At a time when biodiversity is threatened and food security is an increasing global concern, this research reminds us that hidden treasures like wild mushrooms are not only tasty; They are important for ecology and evolution.

Mushrooms can add to our understanding where we come from and how we could share our ecosystems in the future.

This article is republished from the conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.