Positional Behavior

Positional behavior describes an animal's physical activities, and has two components: posture and locomotion. Positional behavior is a vital part of a primate's ecology, as it directly affects foraging and reproductive success, and has strong links with morphology. Primates display hugely diverse and versatile positional repertoires, which allow them to exploit the complex environment of the forest canopy, and which were likely to have been important drivers of primate radiations. This entry develops the ecomorphological and evolutionary frameworks for studying positional behavior, and reviews some of the locomotor strategies that primates have developed in order to overcome environmental challenges.