Why eat flowers? Symphonia globulifera flowers provide a fatty resource for red-tailed monkeys

Abstract

Abstract Flowers are ubiquitous in primate environments, yet their nutritional advantages are underexamined. Symphonia globulifera is a widely distributed tree exploited by a variety of animals in Africa and the Americas. We collected S. globulifera flower samples consumed by red-tailed monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius) and compared them nutritionally to flower samples from other plant species in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Flowers were assayed for three fiber fractions (NDF, ADF, lignin), fat, crude protein, acid detergent insoluble nitrogen (ADIN), ash, and soluble sugars. We estimated available protein, total nonstructural carbohydrates (TNC), and metabolizable energy (ME). We calculated the mean and standard deviation for all nutrient categories and applied nutritional geometry to illustrate the balance among the energetic gains from available protein, fat, fiber, and TNC across flower species. Our results suggest that S. globulifera flowers provide an unusually high fat resource (14.82% ± 1.41%) relative to other flowers (1.38% ± 5.79%) and other foods exploited in the same habitat.