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 heat but increased dawn and night activity under predator pressure. These findings show how abiotic and biotic pressures shape diel schedules and highlight temporal flexibility as an adaptive strategy for generalist mammals in a changing world.