Time Budgets And Habitat Utilization Of The Francois Langur (Trachypithecus Fran(?)oisi) In Fusui Reserve, China

Francois langur is unique to primates living in the karst Rocky mountain areas, and feed some kinds of plants in the mountain for food, and they use the vegetation and geographical conditions in the rock hill for secluded places, then accomplish the process of the species survival and reproduction of life. Because of the unique climate and unique karst limestone region of vegetation composition, francois langur must take full advantage of the resources to survive. This study was designed to research the ecological factors of the francois langur habitat. To explore the effects of habitat selection factors help us deeply access to the inherent characteristics of the species with the karst environment and the interdependence with the habitat space utilization, more deeply understand the adaptation strategy to karst mountain of Francois langur, To provide deeper theoretical support for the protection of wild Francois langur. and to provide a rational basis of indoor rearing and habitat restoration. The main finding results are as follows:1. Francois langur represent seven parts in the day activity rhythm, they are as follows: come out of cave, moving, feeding, resting, moving, feeding, and go back to the cave. There appeared a feeding peak in the morning and another feeding peak in the afternoon, and there is a long time rest at noon. Day activities rhythm of Francois langur is different in dry season and rainy season, The feeding peak is delayed for two hours in the dry season. And feeding counts more time than in rainy season than in dry season; feeding peak appeared earlier for two hours in the dry season in the afternoon. In rainy season, francois langur group break into rest peak more earlier, and there is a short term of moving to replace the resting places and feeding fragmentarily at noon.2. There are six activity types of Fusui francois langur, they share the percentages in the time budget were as follows: resting accounted for 57.1%, 17.2% in moving, feeding accounted for 20.0%, grooming accounted for 2.9%, playing accounted for 2.4%, and the other acts accounted for 0.3%. Activities time budget is vary along with the seasons, mainly as follows: In the rainy season, Francois langur spent in resting was significantly higher than the proportion of the whole activities time budget in the dry season. The proportion of activities time budget for other activities have no significant seasonal variations. Correlation analysis showed that the increase spent in feeding time along with the decrease in rest time, and vice versa. It show that to meet the food requirements fusui Francois langur will maximize the use of time to rest, thus reducing the energy wastage and set aside more time to digest what they had fed.3. There were significant variations in activity budgets in different study periods. The large group(G02-03)spent less time moving and feeding, and more time resting than the small group (G05-06). The group in the low quality habitat engaged more in resting and feeding, and more in moving and social activities than the group in the high quality did. We suggest that activity budgets of the fran?ois'langur were not influenced by group size, but were related with the variations in the availability of food resources or diet composition in different quality habitat. The diurnal activity pattern of the Fran?ois'langur groups in different habitat showed similar patterns, even though there were variations in time when activities peaked.4. The hill which the francois langurs habitat in fusui can be divided into five parts, that is hill top, cliff, slope, hill foot, and the ground near the hill foot. In the time of outside cave, the proportion of each parts of the hill which francois langur used is different. The annual average proportion rates of francois langur use different parts of the hill were as follows: hill top counted for 45.71%, cliff is 40.97%, slope is 13.23% and 0.09% of the hill foot, they never use the ground near the hill foot. The result revealed that they prefered to use cliffs and hill top. There are seasonal variations in using the body of the rocky hill which Francois langur habitated, they inclined to habitat in the cliff in winter, while more inclined to the hill top in summer.5. The analysis between the outside activities and the habitat selection types shows that activities always occurred on hill top and cliff. The highest utilization rate in resting is hill top, accounting for 24.2% of the outside time, followed by cliff, accounted for 22.7% of the outside time, 6.8% of the utilization rate in slope, never found them rested on hill foot; The highest utilization rate in feeding is hill top, accounting for 9.2% of the outside time, cliff is 8.0%, the utilization rate of slope is 2.8%, occasional fed on hill foot, the utilization rate is only 0.1%; The highest utilization rate in grooming is cliff and hill top, accounted for 2.4% and 2.3% of the total outside time respectively, the utilization rate in slope is 0.3%, they did not groom on hill foot; The highest utilization rate in moving is hill top, accounted for 8.0% of the outside time, the cliff and slope counted for 7.5% and 2.3% separately; The highest utilization rate in playing is hill top, accounting for 1.7% of the outside time, cliff counted for 1.2%, sometimes playing on foot, accounting for only 0.3% of the outside time.