Predation is widely recognized as an important selective pressure on prey animals such as baboons (Papio spp.), which face high leopard (Panthera pardus) predation risk, particularly at night. Baboons regularly sleep on cliff faces and in trees at night, ostensibly to avoid such predators. Despite retreating to such "refuges," baboons are most often killed by leopards at or near their sleeping sites. Because of the challenges of studying nocturnal behavior and human-averse predators, few systematic data exist to reveal how leopard ranging near baboon sleeping sites influences baboons' selection of sites and behavior at those sites. To investigate leopard-baboon dynamics at sleeping sites we deployed GPS/VHF radio collars on six representatives of four baboon groups and four leopards during a 14-month field study in Kenya. We used locations recorded every 15 min to identify baboons' cliffside and riverine sleeping sites, the frequency and duration of leopard visits to these sites, and baboons' adjustments in site use after leopard visits. Collared leopards visited riverine sites more frequently than cliffside sites, whereas most baboon groups strongly preferred cliffside sites, suggesting that leopard visits were often due to factors other than baboon presence, and that baboons used cliffside sites to reduce their risk of leopard predation. Regardless of type, collared leopards remained near baboon-occupied sleeping sites longer than vacant ones, indicating interest in hunting baboons then. Baboons at riverine sites departed later on mornings after leopard visits. Baboon groups occasionally shared sleeping sites simultaneously, possibly reducing risk through dilution. However, they did not reduce risk by frequently changing sleeping sites, minimizing detection at sleeping sites, or after leopard visits, arriving earlier the next evening or moving to a different site. Future research should explore if baboons readily detect nocturnal leopard presence and if predation-related changes in sleeping site use have cascading ecological effects.
Keywords: antipredator behavior; felids; predation risk; primates; sleeping sites.
© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.