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<p>Ranging behavior provides important insights into how primates adopt movement strategies and patterns of home range use in response to fluctuating food resources and thermal conditions, which may facilitate the design of conservation management strategies. We aimed to characterize the foraging and ranging behavior of Tibetan macaques (<i>Macaca thibetana</i>) that inhabit a montane forest in Mt. Huangshan, Anhui, China, to evaluate how the macaques adjust their daily path length and home range use patterns based on the distribution and availability of food. We relied on location data collected through GPS collars, food availability index via phenological surveys in plant plots, and the behavior and location of the study group recorded using instantaneous scan sampling at 10-min intervals from September 2020 to August 2023. During the study, we identified 124 plant species eaten by the macaques, which belonged to 94 genera and 59 families. The food types were fruits (mean ± SD, 55.9% ± 34.5%), bamboo shoots (14.3% ± 18.1%), mature leaves (13.1% ± 13.6%), young leaves and buds (9.2% ± 13.5%), flowers (5.5% ± 13.3%), and others (1.9% ± 2.4%). We found that the daily path lengths were positively correlated with the consumption of fruits and bamboo shoots but negatively correlated with ambient temperature and the availability of mature leaves. Spatially, the macaques exhibited a clustered home range pattern with seasonal overlap, modulating patch use frequency according to the abundance of food resources. The results suggest that Tibetan macaques modify their behavior patterns in response to seasonal fluctuations in food availability and ambient temperatures. The results also indicate that the distribution and availability of food influenced the macaques' patch selection patterns. We conclude that Tibetan macaques regulate their foraging and ranging behavior based on the abundance and distribution of food, both temporally and spatially, which could be an effective adaptation to dense, rugged, and heterogeneous montane forests.</p>

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Effect of Food Availability on the Ranging Behavior of Wild Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana) in Montane Forest

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月22日

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  • Shi Cheng,
  • Bowen Li,
  • Qixin Zhang,
  • Binghua Sun,
  • Dongpo Xia,
  • Jinhua Li

摘要

Ranging behavior provides important insights into how primates adopt movement strategies and patterns of home range use in response to fluctuating food resources and thermal conditions, which may facilitate the design of conservation management strategies. We aimed to characterize the foraging and ranging behavior of Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) that inhabit a montane forest in Mt. Huangshan, Anhui, China, to evaluate how the macaques adjust their daily path length and home range use patterns based on the distribution and availability of food. We relied on location data collected through GPS collars, food availability index via phenological surveys in plant plots, and the behavior and location of the study group recorded using instantaneous scan sampling at 10-min intervals from September 2020 to August 2023. During the study, we identified 124 plant species eaten by the macaques, which belonged to 94 genera and 59 families. The food types were fruits (mean ± SD, 55.9% ± 34.5%), bamboo shoots (14.3% ± 18.1%), mature leaves (13.1% ± 13.6%), young leaves and buds (9.2% ± 13.5%), flowers (5.5% ± 13.3%), and others (1.9% ± 2.4%). We found that the daily path lengths were positively correlated with the consumption of fruits and bamboo shoots but negatively correlated with ambient temperature and the availability of mature leaves. Spatially, the macaques exhibited a clustered home range pattern with seasonal overlap, modulating patch use frequency according to the abundance of food resources. The results suggest that Tibetan macaques modify their behavior patterns in response to seasonal fluctuations in food availability and ambient temperatures. The results also indicate that the distribution and availability of food influenced the macaques' patch selection patterns. We conclude that Tibetan macaques regulate their foraging and ranging behavior based on the abundance and distribution of food, both temporally and spatially, which could be an effective adaptation to dense, rugged, and heterogeneous montane forests.