Same habitat types but different use: evidence of context-dependent habitat selection in roe deer across populations

Abstract

With the surge of GPS-technology, many studies uncovered space use of mobile animals and shed light on the underlying behavioral mechanisms of habitat selection. Habitat selection and variation in either occurrence or strength of functional responses (i.e. how selection changes with availability) have given new insight into such mechanisms within populations in different ecosystems. However, linking variation in habitat selection to site-specific conditions in different populations facing contrasting environmental conditions but the same habitat type has not yet been investigated. We aimed to fill this knowledge gap by comparing within-home range habitat selection across 61 female roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) during the most critical life history stage in three study areas showing the same habitat types but with different environmental conditions. Female roe deer markedly differed in habitat selection within their home range, both within and among populations. Females facing poor environmental conditions clearly displayed a functional response, whereas females facing rich environmental conditions did not show any functional response. These results demonstrate how the use of a given habitat relative to its availability strongly varies in response to environmental conditions. Our findings highlight that the same habitat composition can lead to very different habitat selection processes across contrasted environments.

Metabarcoding in two isolated populations of wild roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) reveals variation in gastrointestinal nematode community composition between regions and among age classes

“…With its low productive forest, Chizé is still considered a poor habitat for roe deer, in contrast to the highly productive forest of Trois Fontaines [ 41 ]. In fact, roe deer in Trois Fontaines have access to high quantity and quality of food in the whole study area, while roe deer in Chizé experience a trade-off between high quantity or quality of forage [ 42 ]. Consequently, in Trois Fontaines, the population of roe deer is increasing, whereas the population growth rate is close to 0 in Chizé [ 10 ].…”

Habitat selection patterns are density dependent under the ideal free distribution

“…Such reaction norms are thought to stem from a nonlinear relationship between landscape‐scale resource availability and its relative utility to the consumer (due to saturation, threshold or trade‐off effects), and are often assumed to be monotonic, an assumption that lacks formal theoretical grounding (Holbrook et al., 2019; Matthiopoulos et al., 2011). In fact, the mechanisms invoked in explaining availability dependencies are often vague with regard to the nature of the shift in ‘resource availability’, which may refer to either a shift in the relative frequency of habitat classes, or a shift in the intrinsic value of these habitat classes, with their relative frequency remaining unchanged (Duparc et al., 2019; Paolini et al., 2019; Gaudry et al., 2018).…”

A random walk model that accounts for space occupation and movements of a large herbivore

“…The present study focuses on female red deer for test model. A detailed overview of the landscape and surroundings is given in 40 . The GPS data had regular observation frequencies with high frequency sampling (Table 1).…”