Poster Session 6, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM: Campus Center Auditorium [A82]

Analysis of Seasonal and Monthly Diet Variation of Kinda Baboons in Kasanka National Park, Zambia

Presenter: Luca Paolo Centrella

Faculty Sponsor: Jason Kamilar

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Anthropology

ABSTRACT

Baboons are known to have strong dietary flexibility as they need to respond to seasonal fluctuation in dietary resources. To examine this further, behavioral and dietary data was collected from a habituated troop of Kinda baboons (Papio kindae) in Kasanka National Park (KNP), Zambia for one year. KNP experiences three seasons (cool/dry, hot/dry, and warm/wet). After analysis, 95 foods were identified and divided into eight categories, including fruits, pods, corms, leaves, vertebrates, invertebrates, sap, and “other” items. Monthly and seasonal diets were quantified as the percentage of each food category. 

To examine multivariate patterns in diet, we conducted principal components analysis using the diet data to identify seasonal and monthly dietary variation. The first five principal components (PC) explained approximately 85% of the total dietary variation, with PC1 and PC2 accounting for 53%. PC1 represents a shift from pod and corm-dominated diets to fruit, leaf, flower, and invertebrate-rich diets, distinguishing dry season feeding from wet season feeding. PC2 further separated grass seed and corm consumption from fruit and flower intake, capturing dietary shifts within seasons.

Interestingly, ANOVA results indicate that seasonality significantly affects PC1 (p =0.0018); however, it does not significantly affect PC2 (p = 0.123). This suggests that seasonal changes influence the primary dietary composition pattern (PC1), while secondary dietary composition remains stable across seasons. These findings emphasize the dietary flexibility of Kinda baboons and indicate that future research is needed to better understand the diet variation and feeding behavior of primates over seasonal time scales.