INFLUENCE OF SEASONALITY ON ACTIVITY PATTERNS, FEEDING-BEHAVIOR, RANGING, AND GROUPING PATTERNS IN TAI CHIMPANZEES

Lowland rain forest chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) of the Tai Nat ional Park Ivory Coast, responded to the minor dry season (July and Au gust) of 1988 in a predictable manner by spending more time feeding, f eeding more frequently on lower quality food items, reducing day range and party size, and spending more time solitarily and less time in mi xed groups than during the rainy season. These behaviors are consisten t with a response to scarce resources. My findings do nor support Boes ch's, (1991, 1996) hypothesis of bisexually bonded chimpanzees. Female s spent 45% of time alone and associated with males in mired parties o nly 18% of their time. This major discrepancy in our results probably stems from differences in the time of year when our studies were condu cted, the year in which my study was conducted (potentially scarcer re sources than on average), and methodological differences: focal animal sampling of males and females equally. Although Boesch (1991, 1996) a nd Steiner (1996) have demonstrated that Tai parties are usually large r and more mixed, Tai chimpanzee social structure-party size and compo sition-during this study closely resembles that found at other study s ites.