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This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by Wiley., 1. Supervised learning of behavioral modes from body-acceleration data has become a widely used research tool in Behavioral Ecology over the past decade. One of the primary usages of this tool is to estimate behavioral time budgets from the distribution of behaviors as predicted by the model. These serve as the key parameters to test predictions about the variation in animal behavior. In this paper we show that the widespread computation of behavioral time budgets is biased, due to ignoring the classification model confusion probabilities. 2. Next, we introduce the confusion matrix correction for time budgets - a simple correction method for adjusting the computed time budgets based on the model's confusion matrix. 3. Finally, we show that the proposed correction is able to eliminate the bias, both theoretically and empirically in a series of data simulations on body acceleration data of a fossorial rodent species (Damaraland mole-rat, Fukomys damarensis). 4. Our paper provides a simple implementation of the confusion matrix correction for time budgets, and we encourage researchers to use it to improve accuracy of behavioral time budget calculations. more...

In cooperatively breeding species where rearing effort is shared among multiple group members, increases in group size typically reduce average per capita contributions to offspring care by all group members (load-lightening) but it is not known how changes in group size affect the distribution of workload among group members. The socioeconomic collective action theory suggests that, in larger groups, the incentives for free riding are stronger, leading to greater inequalities in work-division among group members. Here, we use the Gini index to measure inequality at the group level in the contributions of helpers to three different cooperative behaviours (babysitting, pup-provisioning and raised guarding) in groups of varying size in wild Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta). In larger groups, inequality in helpers’ contributions to cooperative activities and the frequency of free riding both increased. Elevated levels of inequality were generated partly as a result of increased differences in contributions to cooperative activities between helpers in different sex and age categories in larger groups. After controlling for the positive effect of group size on total provisioning, increasing levels of inequality in contributions were associated with reductions in total pup-provisioning conducted by the group. Reductions in total pup-provisioning were, in turn, associated with reductions in the growth and survival of pups (but pup growth and survival were not directly affected by inequality in provisioning). Our results support the prediction of collective action theory described above and show how the Gini index can be used to investigate the distribution of cooperative behaviour within the group. more...

Summary statistics for the seasonal niche overlap values with all environmental variables.;Figure and summary statistics for the seasonal niche tracking values with all environmental variables.;Tabel describing the posterior distribution estimates (mean and 95% confidence intervals) for the variability estimation result from the mixed models. more...

Supplementary text, Tables S1-S7, Figure S1-S4

Supplementary text, Tables S1-S13, Figures S1,S2