| Understanding time budgets and activity rhythm of animal behavior during the breeding and pregnancy season is critical to the success of the captive breeding efforts. Giant pandas(Ailuropoda melanoleuca) which are highly endangered throughout their diminished wild range, exhibit a seasonal estrus, which occurs over a single one to three day period each year. Thus, the study of giant panda behavior during the mating season is especially important for ex situ conservation efforts and maintaining the captive populations. And female giant pandas come into pregnancy season once they have been mated successfully. However, some females appeare pseudo-pregnancy and have the similar variation of progestational hormone with the pregnant females in breeding season. Hence, it is seriously necessary to differentiate the two kinds of pregnancies, because which benefits the feed management. Animal foraging behavior is necessary for survival and reproduction. And the type of food intake, food intake, feeding sites and other issues are keys to determining the behavior of income and expenditure. Same as activity rhythms, foraging behavior is also an important aspect of animal behavior.In order to investigate the estrus and pregnancy behavioral changes and activity rhythm, diurnal time budgets and activity rhythms of eight adult giant pandas(two males and six females) and six giant pandas(two pseudo-pregnancy and four pregnancy) who were observed and studied for about four monthes in gestation period at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding were studied over a six-month period from March to August of 2013, using instantaneous scan sampling and all-occurrence recording methods. In addition, in order to explore the feeding behavior and development of captive giant pandas, 26 giant pandas among different age groups which are the old, adult, sub-adult and cub, were observed for their feeding behavior activity in 15 March 2014- 10 May 20. We have analyzed its food intake, selection ratio, feeding rate, sniffing food time on sex and age, to understand the relationship between behavioral development and energy intake of the giant panda. The results showed that:1. The resting was the principal activity of the giant panda during the mating season, followed by feeding and moving. Exploring, grooming, and breeding behavior made up only a small proportion of their time budget. Breeding behavior occurred more frequently between from 0:00 to 03:00, from 9:00 to 11:00 and from 15:00 to 17:00, indicating that these times may be important to the success of mating and breeding techniques. Significant differences existed between the proportion of time spent resting, moving, exploring, grooming, and breeding behavior during this period. We also found that exploring and breeding behaviors were correlated positively with moving(P<0.01). The results of this study provide baseline information on the behaviors of giant pandas during the breeding time, which can be used to further improve the artificial breeding and mating programs currently being conducted.2. In the gestation period, resting was the principal activity of the giant panda, followed by eating and moving, and pregnant behaviour were the smaller proportion. The pregnancy periods were mainly concentrated between 10:00-16:00. Less-eating behaviors appeared on 43 th days of prenatal. And other pregnancy reaction appeared on 30 th days of prenatal. There were significantly differences in feeding and pregnant behaviour between the pseudo-pregnant and the pregnant during the whole period(One-way ANOVA analysis and Mann-Whitney U Test). Therefore, the research of diurnal activity rhythms for captive giant pandas during the gestation period can provide a theoretical basis for the artificial breeding and delivery time in the endangered species.3. When eating bamboo shoots, selection ratio of the old was about 51.0%-51.0%, 40.3%- 74.8% in adult, 39.1%- 39.1% in sub-adult and 15.0%- 20.6% in cub. On feeding rate, there were significant differences between the cub and other three age groups of female; there were also significant differences among 4 age groups of male(p < 0.01). There were extremely significant differences every age group in discrimination time(p < 0.01), and the cub individual took longest times, while adult took shortest. At the same age, there were significant differences in male and female of adult on selection ratio, feeding rate and discrimination time. When eating bamboo, the selection ratio of old is about 14%- 17%, 19%- 21% in adult, and 18%- 31% in sub-adult. There had significant difference between the old and the sub-adult of female or between the adult and sub-adult of male on feeding rate. There had significant difference between the old and the sub-adult on discrimination time(p < 0.05). However only between male and female of the adult were there significant differences ion feeding rate. |
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