Understanding Circadian and Circannual Behavioral Cycles of Captive Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) Can Help to Promote Good Welfare

Abstract

Circadian and circannual cycles of behavior regulate many aspects of welfare including metabolism, breeding, and behavioral interactions. In this study, we aim to demonstrate how systematically determining circadian and circannual cycles can provide insight into animals’ needs and be part of an evidence-based approach to welfare assessment. We measured and analyzed the observational behavioral data of 13 zoo-housed giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), across life stages and between sexes, each month for one year using live camera footage from six zoos across the world. Our results indicate that life stage was associated with changes in overall activity, feeding, locomotion, and pacing, and that sex influenced scent anointing and anogenital rubbing. Overall, the circadian rhythms showed three peaks of activity, including a nocturnal peak, as seen in wild giant pandas. We also found associations between sexual-related, stereotypical/abnormal, and feeding behavior, which are possibly linked to the timing of migration of wild pandas, and elucidated the relationship between a mother and cub, finding that they concentrate maternal behaviors to mainly after closing hours. Understanding these cycle patterns can aid animal care staff in predicting changing needs throughout the day, year, and life cycle and preemptively provide for those needs to best avoid welfare concerns.

Latitudinal and zoo specific zeitgebers influence circadian and circannual rhythmicity of behavior in captive giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

“…Completion of 10-min sessions depended on the availability of an observer and the visibility of the panda on camera. Figure reproduced from Gandia et al (2023) .…”

GLMMcosinor: Flexible cosinor modeling with a generalized linear mixed modeling framework to characterize rhythmic time series

“…By using the glmmTMB framework, GLMMcosinor also allows the user to fit zero-inflated and dispersion models by specifying these as separate, right-sided, formulas. Zero-inflated models are frequent in biological modeling when datasets contain a large number of zero values, which could represent true zeros (when there is no response), or false zeros (when there is failure to capture a response) (Gandia, et al, 2023). GLMMcosinor extends the capability of zero-inflated and dispersion models by allowing the use of amp_acro() within their formulas.…”

Celebrating Women in Science: Pioneering Contributions to Animal Behaviour and Welfare

“…Gandia and colleagues [11] closely observed giant pandas in an enclosed habitat. They correlated specific cycles of feeding anticipatory behaviour, sexual-related behaviour, and abnormal behaviour with the cycles of the migratory behaviour of their wild counterparts.…”