Effects of Provisioning on the Activity Budgets of Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana)

Activity budgets are essential for understanding the variability of behavior and adaptability of primate behavior, as these animals typically adjust their behaviors as their primary response to environmental changes. For instance, provisioning has been associated with altered the time budgets of wild primates. In this study, we conducted field observations on two wild Tibetan macaque (Macaca thibetana) groups the naturally foraging Tianhu II group and the provisioned Yulinkeng I group to investigate activity time allocation patterns in relation to food provisioning. Using 10-min instantaneous scan sampling, we recorded five categories of behavior: resting, traveling, feeding, grooming, and others. The results indicated that the Yulinkeng I group devoted substantially more time to resting (38.97% vs. 23.62%) and grooming (29.76% vs. 7.87%) but considerably less time traveling (17.09% vs. 33.25%) and feeding (5.95% vs. 30.68%) compared to the Tianhu II group. Furthermore, behavioral analyses revealed significant variation across sex and age classes in all five recorded behaviors. Males exhibited a greater tendency to rest, whereas females allocated more time to grooming. Among age classes, juveniles and infants engaged more frequently in other behaviors, particularly play. These findings reveal activity budget patterns associated with provisioning, though they may also reflect unmeasured ecological and demographic differences between the two groups. Regulating provisioning practices is therefore recommended as a precautionary measure to better support their species-typical behaviors.