Why Is It Important to Continue Studying the Behavioral Ecology and Conservation Management of Howler Monkeys?

Abstract

The goals of this first chapter to our volume “Howler Monkeys: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation” are to highlight the importance of long-term studies for understanding howler behavioral ecology, evaluate the concept of howlers as a colonizing species, and to identify those aspects of howler behavior that are well studied from those that require further study. Although there have been numerous studies of individual species of howler monkeys, and several reviews of the genus Alouatta, there was only one volume dedicated to Alouatta. This was a special issue of the International Journal of Primatology (issue 3) published in 1998. This issue, edited by M. Clarke, was the result of a symposium entitled “Howlers: Past and Present,” organized by K. Glander at the 1988 Congress of the International Primatological Society held at Brasilia, Brazil. In this seminal volume there are 11 contributions, four of them were reviews (two on the conservation status on howlers, one on parasites, and one on population characteristics), four were on A. palliata, and two on A. arctoidea. This issue was an important contribution to the study of howler monkeys, but also revealed our limited knowledge of the vast majority of howler species. Given significant advances in the tools available to primate researchers coupled with a dramatic increase in the number of howler species and groups studied, we have put together a single comprehensive volume that integrates our current knowledge of the behavioral, ecological, social, and evolutionary processes that have shaped the life history of this taxon. Our volume includes 15 chapters divided into four sections (1) introduction, (2) behavioral ecology, (3) conservation and management, and (4) conclusion.