Time budgeting and activity profile of free ranging forest group of Assamese macaque
Paper Details
Time budgeting and activity profile of free ranging forest group of Assamese macaque
Abstract
A study was carried out to find out the time budgeting and activity profiles of the forest group of Assamese macaque. For this a free ranging forest group of Assamese macaque was selected from the Jokai reserved forest (RF) of Assam, India. A total of 4800 scan samples were recorded covering all four distinct seasons. The study group spent more than one third (40%) of their total annual time for foraging purpose, followed by 25% on locomotion, 13% on resting, 10% on grooming, 9% on monitoring, 1% on play and 2% on sexual and other activities. A distinct seasonal variation in activities has been recorded. The activity profiles of the forest group have revealed that foraging is the most crucial factor responsible for the variation in the activity profiles. In forest, as the food was randomly distributed, the group cost-effectively arranged their total time and spent more time on foraging, locomotion and resting and less time in grooming, monitoring and play activities. These findings clearly demonstrated that nature of distribution of food resource is the guiding force for allocating time to various activities in different habitats.
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Prabal Sarkar, Anindita Bhattacharya, S.M. Mohnot, 2013. Time budgeting and activity profile of free ranging forest group of Assamese macaque. J. Biodiv. Environ. Sci., 3(11), 104-111.
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