O papel de fatores comportamentais e ecológicos no ajuste de mamíferos a ambientes desafiadores

Abstract

The environmental context is determinant for the persistence of species. Human induced rapid environmental changes, for example, can led to behavioral modifications in animals, which try to adjust to these changes, but if the adjustment is not possible, populations may decline or even species may become extinct. Therefore, it is important to identify the behavioral factors that potentially favor or disfavor the species in the face of these impacts. One of the behavioral factors that can be affected by environmental characteristics is the degree of sociality of species. Some evidence points out that differences in social components are associated with distinct cognitive abilities. The literature also provides evidence that greater cognitive abilities can help to deal with environmental challenges. In this context, in this thesis we aim to evaluate the potential role of social components in the risk of extinction of mammalian species (chapter 1), and to understand the possible mechanisms involved, specifically, whether different cognitive abilities are predicted by differences in social components, diet or longevity of primate species (chapter 2). The assumptions of the relationship between sociality and cognition are based on proxies such as group and brain size, respectively, and we consider measures of other social aspects as well as behavioral measures to test the hypotheses more directly and thoroughly through comparative studies based on data from the literature and databases, considering the phylogenies. We found that, in fact, social components are relevant for the risk of extinction of mammals, since species with biparental care and with promiscuous mating behavior have a lower risk of extinction. Furthermore, larger social groups and species with social bonds and dominance relationships are at greater risk of extinction than smaller group sizes and solitary species, respectively. However, we found that only greater longevity was associated with higher cognitive abilities in primates. We discuss the social and ecological mechanisms that possibly disfavor the persistence of species, and we highlight some gaps in the literature relevant to studies of the evolution of cognition, evolutionary ecology and behavioral ecology, in addition to bringing suggestions for future studies based on our research process.