Data from: Differential impact of severe drought on infant mortality in two sympatric neotropical primates

Extreme climate events can have important consequences for the dynamics of natural populations, and severe droughts are predicted to become more common and intense due to climate change. We analysed infant mortality in relation to drought in two primate species (white-faced capuchins, Cebus capucinus imitator, and Geoffroy's spider monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi) in a tropical dry forest in north-western Costa Rica. Our survival analyses combine several rare and valuable long-term data sets, including long-term primate life-history, landscape-scale fruit abundance, food-tree mortality, and climate conditions. Infant capuchins showed a threshold mortality response to drought, with exceptionally high mortality during a period of intense drought, but not during periods of moderate water shortage. In contrast, spider monkey females stopped reproducing during severe drought, and the mortality of infant spider monkeys peaked later during a period of low fruit abundance and high food-tree mortality linked to the drought. These divergent patterns implicate differing physiology, behaviour, or associated factors in shaping species-specific drought responses. Our findings link predictions about the Earth's changing climate to environmental influences on primate mortality risk and thereby improve our understanding of how the increasing severity and frequency of droughts will affect the dynamics and conservation of wild primates.capuchin-survival.csv Survival data and environmental covariates for infant capuchins. spider-survival.csv Survival data and environmental covariates for infant spider monkeys. tree-survival.csv Survival data and environmental covariates for primate fruit trees. model-survival R script that fits mixed effect Cox proportional hazards models to the capuchin and spider monkey survival data, and binomial GLMMs to the tree survival data. README Text file that describes the variables in each of the CSV files. Funding provided by: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000038Funding provided by: Nacey Maggioncalda FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100009687Funding provided by: Canada Research ChairsCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001804Funding provided by: Chester ZooCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005359Funding provided by: Leakey FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100005966Funding provided by: Louisiana Board of RegentsCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100006952Funding provided by: University of CalgaryCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100008459Funding provided by: Wenner-Gren FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100001388Funding provided by: University of ChesterCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010333Funding provided by: British AcademyCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000286Funding provided by: Sigma XiCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011084Funding provided by: American Society of PrimatologistsCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100006838Funding provided by: National Geographic SocietyCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100006363Funding provided by: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y TecnologíaCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003141Funding provided by: Liverpool John Moores UniversityCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004144Funding provided by: International Society of PrimatologistsCrossref Funder Registry ID: Funding provided by: Animal Behaviour SocietyCrossref Funder Registry ID: Funding provided by: Stone Center for Latin American Studies at at Tulane UniversityCrossref Funder Registry ID: Funding provided by: Newcomb Institute at Tulane UniversityCrossref Funder Registry ID