Yellow baboons inhabit savannas and light forests in eastern Africa, from Kenya and Tanzania to Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Like all other baboon species, they are omnivorous, with a preference for fruits; they also eat plants, leaves, seeds, grasses, bulbs, bark, blossoms and fungi, as well as worms, grubs, insects, spiders, scorpions, birds, rodents and small mammals.

Baboons fulfill several functions in their ecosystem, not only serving as food for larger predators, but also dispersing seeds in their waste and through their messy foraging habits.

Baboons have been able to fill a variety of ecological niches, including places inhospitable to other animals, such as regions taken over by human settlement.

Raids on farmers' crops and livestock and other such intrusions into human settlements have made most baboons species subject to many organized extermination projects.

An area of active research on yellow baboons is the role of their social habits in the composition of their gut microbiome.