Chapter 4 Platyrrhine Ecophylogenetics in Space and Time Alfred L. Rosenberger, Marcelo F. Tejedor, Siobh´ an B. Cooke, and Stephen Pekar 4.1 Introduction We are far from developing an informed synthesis regarding the evolution of New World Monkeys – probably decades away. For even with the important strides made over the past 30–40 years regarding platyrrhine ecology and behavior, there are large gaps in our knowledge of the evolutionary and historical context. The scarceness of fossils is but one factor. Equally critical is our incomplete knowledge of large- scale changes to the continent of South America (SAM), pertinent to the evolution of its fauna. An objective of this paper is to review some of this information as a basis for interpreting the platyrrhines from an ecophylogenetic point of view in space and time. Our goal is to integrate information on living and extinct forms in order to identify community or regional patterns of platyrrhine evolution, rather than examining the moderns and fossils as distinct entities or evolutionary problems. In keeping with the South American emphasis of this volume, we do not consider the primate fauna of the Middle American mainland but have elected to examine the Caribbean subfossil monkeys for reasons that will become clear below. We suggest that the casual way of thinking about New World Monkeys (NWM) as a monolithic radiation inhabiting a rainforest wonderland – South America – is a model that needs to be changed. The continent is about 2.5 times the size of today’s Amazonian rainforest in area, it contains diverse landscapes and habi- tats, and the Amazonian region changed vastly during the Cenozoic (e.g., Bigarella and Ferreira 1985). At present, more of the continent is grassland than rainforest (Fig. 4.1a), and the grasslands have been flourishing for 20–30 million years (see below). The first primates to arrive did not encounter the Amazonia we know, for it may have begun to take on its present character only about 15Ma (Campbell et al. 2006). Thus, even though the NWM have a monophyletic, unitary origin, their A.L. Rosenberger (B) Brooklyn College, The City University of New York, Department of Anthropology and Archaeol- ogy; The Graduate Center, The City University of New York; The American Museum of Nat- ural History, Department of Mammalogy; New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), New York, NY,USA e-mail: alfredr@brooklyn.cuny.edu P.A. Garber et al. (eds.), South American Primates, Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-78705-3 4, C  Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 69