Seasonal and daily shifts in behavior and resource selection: how a carnivore navigates costly landscapes

Ellington, E. Hance; Muntz, Erich M.; Gehrt, Stanley D.

doi:10.1007/s00442-020-04754-1

Cited by 29 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…2 ). We expected seasonal trends in behavior ( Ellington, Muntz & Gehrt, 2020 ), and some of these trends were likely related to the breeding season. Our treatment-control design allowed us to account for these seasonal trends in analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scavengingvshunting affects behavioral traits of an opportunistic carnivore

Parsons

Garcia²,

Young

2022

PeerJ

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Background Human-induced changes to ecosystems transform the availability of resources to predators, including altering prey populations and increasing access to anthropogenic foods. Opportunistic predators are likely to respond to altered food resources by changing the proportion of food they hunt versus scavenge. These shifts in foraging behavior will affect species interactions through multiple pathways, including by changing other aspects of predator behavior such as boldness, innovation, and social structure. Methods To understand how foraging behavior impacts predator behavior, we conducted a controlled experiment to simulate hunting by introducing a prey model to captive coyotes (Canis latrans) and compared their behavior to coyotes that continued to scavenge over one year. We used focal observations to construct behavioral budgets, and conducted novel object, puzzle box, and conspecific tests to evaluate boldness, innovation, and response to conspecifics. Results We documented increased time spent resting by hunting coyotes paired with decreased time spent active. Hunting coyotes increased boldness and persistence but there were no changes in innovation. Our results illustrate how foraging behavior can impact other aspects of behavior, with potential ecological consequences to predator ecology, predator-prey dynamics, and human-wildlife conflict; however, the captive nature of our study limits specific conclusions related to wild predators. We conclude that human-induced behavioral changes could have cascading ecological implications that are not fully understood.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scavengingvshunting affects behavioral traits of an opportunistic carnivore

Parsons

Garcia²,

Young

2022

PeerJ

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“…Future research using such data, e.g., in combination with SnowModel snow depth and caribou location data, could help quantify the effects of snow depth on caribou winter forage accessibility by cratering (e.g., [ 50 , 148 ]). Key to such investigations are location data of sufficient temporal detail to determine activity states (e.g., foraging/cratering, running, walking, resting/ruminating) of each individual (e.g., [ 149 , 150 ]). Hence, our results are likely the first of many investigations to combine snow and forage data to advance our understanding of caribou winter foraging behavior across space and time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying effects of snow depth on caribou winter range selection and movement in Arctic Alaska

et al. 2021

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Background Caribou and reindeer across the Arctic spend more than two thirds of their lives moving in snow. Yet snow-specific mechanisms driving their winter ecology and potentially influencing herd health and movement patterns are not well known. Integrative research coupling snow and wildlife sciences using observations, models, and wildlife tracking technologies can help fill this knowledge void. Methods Here, we quantified the effects of snow depth on caribou winter range selection and movement. We used location data of Central Arctic Herd (CAH) caribou in Arctic Alaska collected from 2014 to 2020 and spatially distributed and temporally evolving snow depth data produced by SnowModel. These landscape-scale (90 m), daily snow depth data reproduced the observed spatial snow-depth variability across typical areal extents occupied by a wintering caribou during a 24-h period. Results We found that fall snow depths encountered by the herd north of the Brooks Range exerted a strong influence on selection of two distinct winter range locations. In winters with relatively shallow fall snow depth (2016/17, 2018/19, and 2019/20), the majority of the CAH wintered on the tundra north of the Brooks Range mountains. In contrast, during the winters with relatively deep fall snow depth (2014/15, 2015/16, and 2017/18), the majority of the CAH caribou wintered in the mountainous boreal forest south of the Brooks Range. Long-term (19 winters; 2001–2020) monitoring of CAH caribou winter distributions confirmed this relationship. Additionally, snow depth affected movement and selection differently within these two habitats: in the mountainous boreal forest, caribou avoided areas with deeper snow, but when on the tundra, snow depth did not trigger significant deep-snow avoidance. In both wintering habitats, CAH caribou selected areas with higher lichen abundance, and they moved significantly slower when encountering deeper snow. Conclusions In general, our findings indicate that regional-scale selection of winter range is influenced by snow depth at or prior to fall migration. During winter, daily decision-making within the winter range is driven largely by snow depth. This integrative approach of coupling snow and wildlife observations with snow-evolution and caribou-movement modeling to quantify the multi-facetted effects of snow on wildlife ecology is applicable to caribou and reindeer herds throughout the Arctic.

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“…Habitat edges are commonly associated with increased prey availability for coyotes (Theberge and Wedeles 1989, Ellington et al. 2020) and increased edge density can reduce competition among intraguild competitors (Janssen et al. 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The top-ranked model did not include an effect of edge density on co-occurrence of coyotes and foxes. Habitat edges are commonly associated with increased prey availability for coyotes (Theberge and Wedeles 1989, Ellington et al 2020) and increased edge density can reduce competition among intraguild competitors (Janssen et al 2007). It may be that decreased occurrence of coyotes and the directional effect of increased occurrence of foxes with increasing edge density spatially segregates these species, reducing competition.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%