Are Primates Ecosystem Engineers? Colin A. Chapman & Tyler R. Bonnell & Jan F. Gogarten & Joanna E. Lambert & Patrick A. Omeja & Dennis Twinomugisha & Michael D. Wasserman & Jessica M. Rothman Received: 27 July 2012 / Accepted: 19 October 2012 / Published online: 5 December 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012 Abstract Animals can play important roles in structuring the plant communities in which they live. Some species are particularly influential in that they modify the physical environment by changing, maintaining, and/or creating new habitats; the term ecosystem engineer has been used to describe such species. We here assess the two major foraging strategies of primates, frugivory and folivory, in terms of the potential for primates to function as ecosystem engineers. We argue that whereas the role of primates as seed dispersers has received a great deal of attention, the potential Int J Primatol (2013) 34:1–14 DOI 10.1007/s10764-012-9645-9 C. A. Chapman (*) McGill School of Environment and Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7 e-mail: Colin.Chapman@McGill.ca C. A. Chapman Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY 10460, USA T. R. Bonnell Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7 J. F. Gogarten Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7 J. E. Lambert Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA P. A. Omeja : D. Twinomugisha Makerere University Biological Field Station, P.O. Box 967, Kampala, Uganda M. D. Wasserman Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7 J. M. Rothman Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA J. M. Rothman New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, NY, USA