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.