Diet, food availability and climatic factor drive ranging behavior of white-headed langurs in the limestone forest of Guangxi, southwest China

Changes in abiotic and biotic factors may potentially affect animals’ efficiency of biological systems, and force them to adjust their behaviors in response to these daily and seasonal variations. From September 2016 to August 2017, we collected data on ranging behavior of four groups of White-headed langurs (Trachypithecus leucocephalus), living in the Guangxi Chongzuo White-Headed Langur National Nature Reserve, Guangxi, southwest China. The objective was to simultaneous analyze how multiple ecological factors affect langurs’ ranging behavior, which would facilitate to understand the potential mechanisms of their adaptation to the limestone habitat. The results showed that the ranging behavior of langurs was significantly affected by diet composition, food availability and climatic factors. Specifically, the moving time and daily path lengths increased with increase in dietary diversity. Furthermore, langurs’ moving time and daily path lengths were positively associated with availability of fruits, relative humidity of forest, and moderated associated with temperature and relative humidity of bare rock. Our study demonstrates that langurs maintain stable moving and feeding times, and a short daily travel distance, likely adopting an energy-conserving behavioral strategy in response to food shortages and high temperature in the fragmented karst forest, and highlights the importance of food availability and temperature to shape the ranging behavior of these karst-dwelling langurs.