Abstract
The time budget and behavioural patterns of Gelada were studied on the Gich Plateau of the Simien Mountains National Park, Ethiopia. The plateau is dominated mainly by Afroalpine grasses and the endemic giant Lobelia rhynchopetalum . Gich lies on the climatic and altitudinal limits of the Gelada’s geographical distribution. Activity data were collected using continuous focal animal scan sampling method during 10 consecutive days each month (from May 2013 to April 2014). Data were recorded for different age/sex classes. The Gelada spent on average 56.7% of daylight hours feeding, 14.1% travelling, 10.7% resting, 17.5% socializing and 1.1% in other non-social activity. There was seasonal variation in activity budgets, indicating a significant increase in time allocation for feeding activity, but a decrease in resting time during the dry season. The age/sex classes showed variation in activity budgets, except for social activity.
Highlights
Primates that live in environments where there are seasonal variations of food and climatic conditions exhibit behavioural and physiological adaptations to deal with ecological and energetic challenges (Iwamoto & Dunbar 1983)
This study indicated that gelada devote more than half of their time to feeding over other activity states
Dunbar (1992) suggests that the availability of food and its energy content are critical determinants of an animals’ daily activity pattern, factors that influence food availability have a strong effect on time allocation decisions
Summary
Primates that live in environments where there are seasonal variations of food and climatic conditions exhibit behavioural and physiological adaptations to deal with ecological and energetic challenges (Iwamoto & Dunbar 1983). Folivorous primates in general spend less time feeding, more time resting and have shorter day ranges than frugivores, due to the abundant and relatively even distribution of leaves in many areas (Dasilva 1992). These behavioural patterns are thought to associate with a strategy of energy conservation (Stanford 1991; Milton 1998). The relationships among ranging behaviour, habitat quality, group size and diet of a primate species do not always show a consistent pattern (Dunbar 1988; Hunter 2001), probably due to the ability of different species to cope with resource scarcity and feeding competition in different ways. Some primates could respond to food scarcity without changing their ranging behaviour considerably by broadening the diet or by spending more time in each feeding patch (Di Fiore 2003)
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