Seasonal activity patterns of Arsi geladas (Theropithecus gelada arsi) inhabiting an anthropogenic landscape at Goro-Jena, Ethiopia
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
View abstract on PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.Arsi geladas in Ethiopia spend most of their time feeding, especially during cooler parts of the day. Their activity patterns show minor seasonal shifts, indicating adaptation to a challenging, hot environment. Conservation efforts are crucial for this subspecies.
Area Of Science
- Primate Behavioral Ecology
- Conservation Biology
- Animal Behavior
Background
- Arsi geladas (T. gelada arsi) are a poorly understood subspecies facing habitat loss in Ethiopia's challenging Arsi region.
- This subspecies inhabits an environment characterized by low elevation, low rainfall, high temperatures, and significant habitat degradation.
Purpose Of The Study
- To investigate the diurnal and seasonal activity budgets of Arsi geladas.
- To understand how Arsi geladas adapt their behavior to cope with a disturbed and climatically stressful environment.
Main Methods
- Conducted 16 months of observational scan sampling on a focal group of approximately 35 Arsi geladas.
- Recorded activity budgets, including feeding, socializing, moving, and resting, over diurnal and seasonal cycles.
Main Results
- Arsi geladas allocated the majority of their time to feeding (57.3%), followed by socializing (18.7%), moving (12.5%), and resting (10.2%).
- Feeding and social behaviors showed distinct diurnal peaks, while resting increased during the hottest part of the day, suggesting thermoregulatory behavior.
- Minor seasonal variations in activity were observed, with increased feeding during periods of lower resource availability.
Conclusions
- Arsi geladas at Goro-Jena exhibit activity patterns consistent with occupying a marginal environment under significant energetic stress.
- The observed feeding time is comparable to high-elevation populations coping with cold, highlighting the challenges of their hot climate.
- Urgent conservation actions, including habitat protection and expansion, are necessary for the survival of this threatened subspecies.
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
These videos have been matched automatically. Contact us if they are not relevant.
Related Concept Videos
Throughout its ~4.5 billion year history, the Earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling. However, the current drastic increase in global temperatures is well outside of the Earth’s cyclic norms, and evidence for human-caused global climate change is compelling. Paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate conditions, provides ample evidence for human-caused global climate change by comparing recent conditions with those in the past.
Past Periods of Warming and Cooling
In...
The circadian—or biological—clock is an intrinsic, timekeeping, molecular mechanism that allows plants to coordinate physiological activities over 24-hour cycles called circadian rhythms. Photoperiodism is a collective term for the biological responses of plants to variations in the relative lengths of dark and light periods. The period of light-exposure is called the photoperiod.
One example of photoperiodism in plants is seasonal flowering. Scientists believe that plants are cued...
Migration is long-range, seasonal movement from one region or habitat to another. This common strategy, carried out by many different organisms around the world, is an adaptive response that typically corresponds to changes in an organism’s environment, like resource availability or climate. Migrations can involve huge groups of thousands of animals as well as single individuals traveling alone and can range from thousands of kilometers to just a few hundred meters.
Why Animals Migrate
How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.
Optimal foraging theory states that natural selection favors foraging strategies that balance the benefits of a particular food, such as energy and nutrients, with the costs of obtaining it, such as energy expenditure and the risk of predation. Optimal foraging maximizes benefits while minimizing costs.
For the Crows
Habitat fragmentation describes the division of a more extensive, continuous habitat into smaller, discontinuous areas. Human activities such as land conversion, as well as slower geological processes leading to changes in the physical environment, are the two leading causes of habitat fragmentation. The fragmentation process typically follows the same steps: perforation, dissection, fragmentation, shrinkage, and attrition.
Perforation and dissection often occur during the initial stages of...
All organisms have a position within an ecosystem. The complete set of living and nonliving factors—including food resources, climate, and terrain—that define the position of a given organism are collectively referred to as the organism’s ecological niche.
Multiple species cannot occupy the exact same niche within their habitat. If the niches of two or more species overlap to a large extent, the competitive exclusion principle dictates that one species will outcompete the...