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High Energy or Protein Concentrations in Food as Possible Offsets for Cyanide Consumption by Specialized Bamboo Lemurs in Madagascar

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Abstract

Plants producing toxic plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) deter folivores from feeding on them. Animals that can cope with noxious PSMs have a niche with a competitive advantage over other species. However, the ability to cope with toxic PSMs incurs the costs of detoxification. To assess possible compensations for the ingestion of toxic PSMs, we compare the chemical quality of plants consumed by bamboo lemurs (genera Hapalemur and Prolemur; strepsirrhine primates of Madagascar) in areas with and without bamboo. Some bamboo lemurs consume bamboo containing concentrations of cyanogenic substances 10–50 times above the average lethal dosage for mammals, and we postulate that animals consuming cyanogenic substances need supplementary protein or readily available energy for detoxification. We compared the chemical composition of food consumed by three species of bamboo lemurs that feed mainly (>80% of their time) on bamboo in the evergreen rainforest of Ranomafana (Madagascar) with published data of the diets of bamboo lemurs at two sites without highly cyanogenic plants (reed beds of Lac Alaotra and the evergreen littoral forest of Mandena) and with food of sympatric folivorous lemur species that do not feed on bamboo. Lemurs feeding on bamboo consumed up to twice as much protein as bamboo lemurs in areas without bamboo and sympatric lemur species that feed on leaves of trees. Concentrations of nonstructural carbohydrates (a source of energy) showed the opposite trend. This result supports the hypothesis that feeding on cyanogenic plants is linked to high protein intake, either as a source of protein or for sulfur-containing amino acids that can be used for detoxification. Owing to the high protein concentrations in bamboo, however, we cannot distinguish between the hypothesis that lemurs that eat bamboo target additional food items with higher protein from the hypothesis that lemurs feeding on bamboo unavoidably obtain higher concentrations of protein than animals feeding on leaves of trees, without an added nutritional benefit.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Département Biologie Animale of the Université d’Antananarivo, the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments (ICTE) at Stony Brook, B. Andriamihaja and his staff at the Madagascar Institute pour la Conservation des Environnements Tropicaux (MICET), the Association Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées (ANGAP; now Madagascar National Parks), the Direction des Eaux et Forêts (DEF), and QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM) for their ongoing support, collaboration, and permission to conduct the studies at Ranomafana National Park, Mandena, and Sainte Luce. T. M. Eppley thanks the following organizations for their generous financial and in-kind support: American Society of Primatologists, Conservation International Primate Action Fund, Idea Wild, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund (Project Number 11253008), Primate Conservation Inc., and the Primate Society of Great Britain/Knowsley Safari Park. C. L. Tan thanks the following organizations for supporting the research study in Ranomafana: National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, Primate Conservation, Inc., Wildlife Conservation Society, Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation, Earthwatch Institute, Sigma **, and the SUNY Stony Brook Undergraduate Study Abroad Program. D. J. Ballhorn thanks the National Science Foundation for financial support (IOS grants 1457369 and 1656057). We thank Irene Tomaschewski for her expert help with plant analyses. W. Foley, J. Rothman, J. Setchell, and two anonymous reviewers provided very helpful comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biozentrum Grindel, Department of Animal Ecology and Conservation, Universität Hamburg, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Timothy M. Eppley & Jörg U. Ganzhorn

  2. Nocturnal Primate Research Group, Department of Anthropology and Geography, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK

    Timothy M. Eppley & Giuseppe Donati

  3. LVDI International, San Marcos, CA, 92078, USA

    Chia L. Tan

  4. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, California University of Pennsylvania, California, PA, 15120, USA

    Summer J. Arrigo-Nelson

  5. Department of Biology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA

    Daniel J. Ballhorn

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  2. Chia L. Tan
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  3. Summer J. Arrigo-Nelson
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  4. Giuseppe Donati
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  5. Daniel J. Ballhorn
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  6. Jörg U. Ganzhorn
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Correspondence to Timothy M. Eppley.

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Eppley, T.M., Tan, C.L., Arrigo-Nelson, S.J. et al. High Energy or Protein Concentrations in Food as Possible Offsets for Cyanide Consumption by Specialized Bamboo Lemurs in Madagascar. Int J Primatol 38, 881–899 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-017-9987-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-017-9987-4

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