Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

members of the Bombaceae - Ceiba pentandra and Pachira insignis - were both among
the species whose leaves were most commonly observed to be eaten (Roosmalen
1985b: 75). Later supplementation of van Roosmalen’s data with observations from
French Guiana added Hymenaea courbaril to his list of fruits eaten (Roosmalen and
Klein 1988: 467-472). Also in French Guiana, fruits of 69 species were observed to
be consumed. These included Manilkara bidentata, Inga alba and one other species of
Inga, two species of Chrysophyllum, Sacloglottis cydonioides, Leonia glycycarpa,
Micropholis cf. venulosa, three species of Pouteria, Tetragastris altissima and T.
panamensis (Simmen and Sabatier 1996). An earlier study from French Guiana
included Oenocarpus bacaba, three species of Inga, and Chrysophyllum lucentifolium
among a total of 44 species whose fruits were eaten (Guillotin et al. 1994).
Roosmalen also reported the consumption of fruits of member of the family
Apocynaceae, and thus of twenty-one fruits recorded in the present study, seventeen
were corroborated to genus or species in other studies, and three of the remaining
four to family. The single species whose leaves were reported to be eaten in this
study was corroborated to family level.
In other aspects of ecology, most observations were in agreement with published
data (table 7.14). Exceptions were in an observation on seasonal variation in calling
behaviour, and data on the timing of birth, both of which were contradicted by
Roosmalen’s finding. Roosmalen’s observation about responses to the presence of a
harpy eagle are also inconsistent with reports that it is a predator in this study, but
also with the recorded observation of predation by an ecologically equivalent species
in French Guiana (Juillot 1994). The greatest contrast in the two data sets came in
the number of food plants reported . Roosmalen recorded 171 species whose fruits
were eaten among a total of 217 food plants, compared with 47 segregates recorded
in this study, only 23 of which were corroborated by being mentioned by more than
one interviewee. The numbers of food items reported were lower in the other
ecological studies, but they were both based on short-term data and almost certainly
incomplete. Furthermore, there were some notable absentees from the list of food
plants obtained in the present study. Bagassa guianensis, for example, was reported
to be an important food source in both Surinam (Roosmalen 1985b, Norcock and
Kinzey 1994) and French Guiana (Simmen and Sabatier 1996), but not mentioned
here. Floristic differences among sites certainly affect the diet: Ateles are reported to
be opportunistic feeders, whose specific dietary composition depends on the relative
availability of different food plants. B. guianensis may be consumed less frequently as
a result of its being less abundant at the present study site. However, its absence