New Challenges in the Study of Howler Monkey Behavioral Ecology and Conservation: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go

Abstract

Howler monkeys comprise some 12 species of fruit, leaf, and flower feeding New World primates (see Cortés-Ortiz et al. 2014) that range from southern Mexico through southern Argentina and Brazil. Alouatta has the most widespread distribution of any platyrrhine genus and can exploit forest types that vary from undisturbed rainforest to severely anthropogenically impacted forest fragments adjacent to pastures, agricultural fields, and human communities (Estrada 2014). In many instances, howlers are the only primate species found in these highly disturbed habitats. Although there exist numerous short-term and long-term studies on individual howler species, the goal of this volume is to bring together a set of expert scholars, many from habitat countries, to contribute to a comprehensive volume that reviews, integrates, and evaluates current information on howler behavior, ecology, nutrition, reproduction, evolution, and conservation. Moreover, recently published studies on howler nutritional ecology, patterns of habitat utilization, mating strategies, collective action, and conservation highlight the growing importance of the genus Alouatta as a comparative model for examining parallel solutions to social and ecological challenges faced by species of prosimians, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and apes (Kowalewski and Garber 2010; Di Fiore et al. 2011; Garber and Kowalewski 2011).