Priorities for Future Research

The biology of Southern Emerald-Toucanet is poorly known, especially in comparison to its sister species, Northern Emerald-Toucanet (Aulacorhynchus prasinus). Even such basic topics as diet and breeding biology are almost unknown for Southern Emerald-Toucanet. There also is no information on topics such as home range size and density or on such demographic topics as age at first breeding, life span and survivorship, dispersal, or population regulation. Finally, the taxonomic status of the different subspecies of Southern Emerald-Toucanet merits further investigation, including a reassessment of the reported hybridization between two taxa (cyanolaemus and atrogularis) in northern Peru.