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Ecological and Phylogenetic Correlates to Body Size in the Indriidae

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I investigated ecological and phylogenetic correlates to body size variations in 10 taxa of extant Indriidae (Indri, Avahi, and Propithecus). I also tested for phylogenetic niche conservatism as a model for the evolution of indriid body size. Phylogenetic niche conservatism refers to the shared attributes that related taxa have acquired because they tend to have occupied similar niches during their evolutionary history. I collected species-specific data on body mass, climate, density, and chemical properties of food items from the literature. I used 2 phylogenies in independent contrasts methods to control for phylogenetic relationships (Indri and Propithecus as sister taxa vs. Indri basal taxa to all indriids). Multivariate models indicated that lemur density and resource quality are the strongest ecological correlates to indriid body size variations. Partitioning methods revealed that 52.4–67% of indriid body size variation is explained by phylogenetic niche conservation. Thus, indriid body size variations may be the result of stabilizing selection. Though it is possible to identify constraints on lower than average body size, there are few data on selection against larger than average body size in indriids. Large body size in subfossil lemurs further complicates identification of constraints on larger than average body size in extant indriids. Researchers using independent contrast methods to control for phylogeny should be aware that some ecology-phenotype relationships are best explained as the result of the synergistic effects of ecology and phylogeny.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the Association Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées, Ministère de L’Eau et de Forêt, L’Office National pour l’Environnement à Madagascar, and University of Antananarivo for permission to conduct research in Madagascar. I thank Patricia Wright, Benjamin Andriamahaja, the staff at ICTE/MICET, Fanja Raoelinirina, and the staff at La Maison du Pyla for their support, advice, and hospitality. I am grateful to the many men and women who have assisted me with my research in Madagascar, Richard Smith for his advice on phylogenetic contrasts methods, and Rochelle Lundy for her assistance in conducting the phylogenetic contrasts analyses. I thank the students in my graduate class on primate ecology—Andrea Faulkner, Rochelle Lundy, Mariam Nargolwalla, and Nicole Taylor—for their excellent discussions and critiques of the data and methods described here. I particularly thank the 2 anonymous reviewers who made such insightful and informative suggestions on earlier versions of the manuscript. My research was supported in part by The Connaught Foundation, University of Toronto, and a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3G3

    Shawn M. Lehman

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Lehman, S.M. Ecological and Phylogenetic Correlates to Body Size in the Indriidae. Int J Primatol 28, 183–210 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-006-9114-4

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