Stay home, stay safe—Site familiarity reduces predation risk in a large herbivore in two contrasting study sites

Gehr, Benedikt; Bonnot, Nadège C.; Heurich, Marco; Cagnacci, Francesca; Ciuti, Simone; Hewison, A. J. Mark; Gaillard, Jean‐Michel; Ranc, Nathan; Premier, Joe; Vogt, Kristina; Hofer, Elizabeth J.; Ryser, Andreas; Vimercati, Eric; Keller, Lukas F.

doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13202

Cited by 48 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(107 reference statements)

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“…In our study area, there were no natural predators. However, in presence of predation risk the attraction to familiar areas could be related to an avoidance tactic 47 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preference and familiarity mediate spatial responses of a large herbivore to experimental manipulation of resource availability

Ranc

Moorcroft

Hansen

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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the link between spatio-temporal resource patterns and animal movement behaviour is a key ecological process, however, limited experimental support for this connection has been produced at the home range scale. In this study, we analysed the spatial responses of a resident large herbivore (roe deer Capreolus capreolus) using an in situ manipulation of a concentrated food resource. Specifically, we experimentally altered feeding site accessibility to roe deer and recorded (for 25 animal-years) individual responses by GPS tracking. We found that, following the loss of their preferred resource, roe deer actively tracked resource dynamics leading to more exploratory movements, and larger, spatially-shifted home ranges. Then, we showed, for the first time experimentally, the importance of site fidelity in the maintenance of large mammal home ranges by demonstrating the return of individuals to their familiar, preferred resource despite the presence of alternate, equally-valuable food resources. This behaviour was modulated at the individual level, where roe deer characterised by a high preference for feeding sites exhibited more pronounced behavioural adjustments during the manipulation. Together, our results establish the connections between herbivore movements, space-use, individual preference, and the spatio-temporal pattern of resources in home ranging behaviour. Animals move to change the environmental conditions they experience 1 such as the presence of predators and competitors, and the availability of resources. Because foraging efficiency can be linked to individual fitness 2 , food acquisition is thought to be a primary driver underlying animal movements 3. Consequently, space-use represents the geographic realization of optimizing fitness as a function of resource availability and acquisition costs 4. Food resources are usually dynamic in both space and time 5. In the case of herbivores, animals typically feed on vegetation distributed in patches, which are characterized by important temporal variations in quantity and quality 6. In this context, strong spatio-temporal gradients in resource availability, at either landscape or regional scales, appear to drive migration and nomadism tactics 7. In many herbivore populations, however, individuals show a high year-round fidelity to a spatially-localized home range. It has been suggested that the foraging benefits of site familiarity, where resources are constant or predictable, are responsible for the formation of a stable home range (see Fagan et al. 8 for a review). While the home range has traditionally been perceived as a relatively static space-use tactic, recent evidence suggests that animals have sub-seasonal home ranges 9 i.e.,

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“…In our study area, there were no natural predators. However, in presence of predation risk the attraction to familiar areas could be related to an avoidance tactic 47 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preference and familiarity mediate spatial responses of a large herbivore to experimental manipulation of resource availability

Ranc

Moorcroft

Hansen

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Individuals in large groups would increase their conspecific interactions and social bonding without the same scramble competition for resources. In particular, if a migrant loses a calf to predation during the previous summer, the security of the human refuge and social ties on the winter range may foster the shift in migratory tactic (Switzer, 1997;Hoover, 2003;Gehr et al, 2020).…”

Section: Implications For Maintaining Partial Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Density-Dependent Foraging Behaviors on Sympatric Winter Ranges in a Partially Migratory Elk Population

et al. 2020

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Many large herbivore populations are partially migratory, in which the population is comprised of both non-migratory (resident) and migratory individuals. Densitydependence contributes to regulating the dynamics of partially migratory populations by altering habitat selection, vital rates, or rates of behavioral switching between migratory tactics. Studies of mechanisms leading to these shifts have focused mainly on their behavior on summer range, overlooking the potential for density-dependent effects during winter that may influence decisions to migrate. We hypothesized that competition for food and safety from wolf predation risk on winter ranges would differentially affect habitat selection, movements, and grouping behavior of migrant and resident female North American elk (Cervus canadensis) on their sympatric winter range. We used GPS locations from 92 adult female elk in 155 elk-winters at Ya Ha Tinda, Alberta, Canada, over a 14-year period when the elk population declined by ∼70% to test our hypotheses. Elk showed consistently strong selection for areas of high forage biomass that corresponded to longer residence times and shorter return times to areas of high forage biomass. The strength of the selection diminished at high elk population size as did the extent to which elk traded off forage for safety from wolf predation risk. Elk increased movement rates and extended return times only to the riskiest areas. Median group size and mean sociality among elk increased at low population size, with resident elk groups being larger and more cohesive than migrant groups. Similar density-dependent responses by migrant and resident female elk on sympatric winter range indicate resident elk do not alter foraging behaviors to compensate for exposure to low nutritional resources in summer, implicating seasonal differences in nutrition are not mediated by winter densities in this system. We discuss the implications of competition on winter ranges for the maintenance of partial migration in ungulates in montane systems.

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“…Two main hypotheses have been formulated for the fitness benefits associated with site familiarity: (i) improved resource acquisition through the memorization of resource locations and attributes 10,15 , and (ii) predator avoidance through the knowledge of fine-scale variations in predation risk and of escape routes 46 . Previous work has shown that in roe deer, individuals rely on memory to efficiently track the spatio-temporal changes in food availability within their familiar environment 21 but are also prone to elevated predation risk from Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) when outside of their familiar space 47 . These two benefits of site familiarity are difficult to disentangle in nature; in our study, both factors may likely have driven the revisitation patterns that contributed to the emergence of roe deer home ranges.…”

Section: For a Cognitive Model Including Perception And Memory)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory drives the formation of animal home ranges: evidence from a reintroduction

Ranc

Cagnacci

Moorcroft

2020

Preprint

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Most animals live in a characteristic home range, a space-use pattern thought to emerge from the benefits of memory-based movements; however, a general model for characterizing and predicting their formation in the absence of territoriality has been lacking. Here, we use a mechanistic movement model to quantify the role of memory in the movements of a large mammal reintroduced into a novel environment, and to predict observed patterns of home range emergence. We show that an interplay between memory and resource preferences is the primary process influencing the movements of reintroduced roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). Our memory-based model fitted with empirical data successfully predicts the formation of home ranges, as well as emerging properties of movement and revisits observed in the reintroduced animals. These results provide a quantitative framework for combining memory-based movements, resource preference and the emergence of home ranges in nature.

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Stay home, stay safe—Site familiarity reduces predation risk in a large herbivore in two contrasting study sites

Cited by 48 publications

References 65 publications

Preference and familiarity mediate spatial responses of a large herbivore to experimental manipulation of resource availability

Preference and familiarity mediate spatial responses of a large herbivore to experimental manipulation of resource availability

Density-Dependent Foraging Behaviors on Sympatric Winter Ranges in a Partially Migratory Elk Population

Memory drives the formation of animal home ranges: evidence from a reintroduction

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