Climate and predation drive variation of diel activity patterns in chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) across Southern Africa.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how animals adjust daily activity to environmental gradients reveals key drivers of behavioral plasticity. While diel activity is theorized to reflect trade-offs among thermoregulation, energy balance, and predation risk, few studies test these interactions at broad spatial scales within species. We investigated this in chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) using over a million camera-trap detections across 29 sites in six biomes (2016-2022) in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Activity, as measured by area under the kernel density curve (AUC), declined by about 3% with latitude, consistent with lower resource predictability, and increased with thermal stress, while latest detected movement (LDM) and earliest detected movement (EDM) times were similar across sites. Baboons avoided midday h

SUBMITTER: Dzingwena L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12603080 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature