Tree Climbing in African Lions and Leopards

ABSTRACT

Tree climbing has been documented in most felids, but patterns, correlates, and possible functions of this behaviour are not well documented for all species, including the African lion. Using a comparative behavioural ecology approach and drawing on opportunistic field observations from multiple sites in northern Tanzania, I used Bayesian logistic regression models to assess how environmental and contextual covariates are associated with arboreal behaviour in lions, and contrasted these patterns with those of sympatric leopards, for whom arboreality is a key strategy to avoid kleptoparasitism. In lions, arboreal behaviour was rare but occurred across surveyed sites. Arboreal behaviour was more likely during the wet season, during afternoon hours, and linked to demography, with males climbing trees less frequently than females and subadults. In contrast, arboreal behaviour in leopards was frequent, non-seasonal, associated with prey carcass presence, and highest during midday times. These results suggest that arboreal behaviour in large African felids reflects a fundamental contrast between adaptive niche specialization in leopards and facultative, context-dependent behavioural plasticity in lions. While the motivation for tree climbing is likely shaped by multiple proximate drivers, the quantitative insights provided here demonstrate how comparative analyses can disentangle facultative behaviours from functionally integrated niche use in sympatric carnivores.