Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses
Abstract Animals use a variety of proximate cues to assess habitat quality when resources vary spatiotemporally. Two nonmutually exclusive strategies to assess habitat quality involve either direct assessment of landscape features or observation of social cues from conspecifics as a form of informat...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5071 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.5071 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.5071 |
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crwiley:10.1002/ece3.5071 2024-09-30T14:41:42+00:00 Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses Peignier, Mélissa Webber, Quinn M. R. Koen, Erin L. Laforge, Michel P. Robitaille, Alec L. Vander Wal, Eric 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5071 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.5071 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.5071 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ecology and Evolution volume 9, issue 9, page 5133-5145 ISSN 2045-7758 2045-7758 journal-article 2019 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5071 2024-09-19T04:19:40Z Abstract Animals use a variety of proximate cues to assess habitat quality when resources vary spatiotemporally. Two nonmutually exclusive strategies to assess habitat quality involve either direct assessment of landscape features or observation of social cues from conspecifics as a form of information transfer about forage resources. The conspecific attraction hypothesis proposes that individual space use is dependent on the distribution of conspecifics rather than the location of resource patches, whereas the resource dispersion hypothesis proposes that individual space use and social association are driven by the abundance and distribution of resources. We tested the conspecific attraction and the resource dispersion hypotheses as two nonmutually exclusive hypotheses explaining social association and of adult female caribou ( Rangifer tarandus ). We used location data from GPS collars to estimate interannual site fidelity and networks representing home range overlap and social associations among individual caribou. We found that home range overlap and social associations were correlated with resource distribution in summer and conspecific attraction in winter. In summer, when resources were distributed relatively homogeneously, interannual site fidelity was high and home range overlap and social associations were low. Conversely, in winter when resources were distributed relatively heterogeneously, interannual site fidelity was low and home range overlap and social associations were high. As access to resources changes across seasons, caribou appear to alter social behavior and space use. In summer, caribou may use cues associated with the distribution of forage, and in winter caribou may use cues from conspecifics to access forage. Our results have broad implications for our understanding of caribou socioecology, suggesting that caribou use season‐specific strategies to locate forage. Caribou populations continue to decline globally, and our finding that conspecific attraction is likely related to access to ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Rangifer tarandus Wiley Online Library Ecology and Evolution 9 9 5133 5145 |
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Wiley Online Library |
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English |
description |
Abstract Animals use a variety of proximate cues to assess habitat quality when resources vary spatiotemporally. Two nonmutually exclusive strategies to assess habitat quality involve either direct assessment of landscape features or observation of social cues from conspecifics as a form of information transfer about forage resources. The conspecific attraction hypothesis proposes that individual space use is dependent on the distribution of conspecifics rather than the location of resource patches, whereas the resource dispersion hypothesis proposes that individual space use and social association are driven by the abundance and distribution of resources. We tested the conspecific attraction and the resource dispersion hypotheses as two nonmutually exclusive hypotheses explaining social association and of adult female caribou ( Rangifer tarandus ). We used location data from GPS collars to estimate interannual site fidelity and networks representing home range overlap and social associations among individual caribou. We found that home range overlap and social associations were correlated with resource distribution in summer and conspecific attraction in winter. In summer, when resources were distributed relatively homogeneously, interannual site fidelity was high and home range overlap and social associations were low. Conversely, in winter when resources were distributed relatively heterogeneously, interannual site fidelity was low and home range overlap and social associations were high. As access to resources changes across seasons, caribou appear to alter social behavior and space use. In summer, caribou may use cues associated with the distribution of forage, and in winter caribou may use cues from conspecifics to access forage. Our results have broad implications for our understanding of caribou socioecology, suggesting that caribou use season‐specific strategies to locate forage. Caribou populations continue to decline globally, and our finding that conspecific attraction is likely related to access to ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Peignier, Mélissa Webber, Quinn M. R. Koen, Erin L. Laforge, Michel P. Robitaille, Alec L. Vander Wal, Eric |
spellingShingle |
Peignier, Mélissa Webber, Quinn M. R. Koen, Erin L. Laforge, Michel P. Robitaille, Alec L. Vander Wal, Eric Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses |
author_facet |
Peignier, Mélissa Webber, Quinn M. R. Koen, Erin L. Laforge, Michel P. Robitaille, Alec L. Vander Wal, Eric |
author_sort |
Peignier, Mélissa |
title |
Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses |
title_short |
Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses |
title_full |
Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses |
title_fullStr |
Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses |
title_full_unstemmed |
Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: Testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses |
title_sort |
space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5071 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.5071 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.5071 |
genre |
Rangifer tarandus |
genre_facet |
Rangifer tarandus |
op_source |
Ecology and Evolution volume 9, issue 9, page 5133-5145 ISSN 2045-7758 2045-7758 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5071 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
5133 |
op_container_end_page |
5145 |
_version_ |
1811644161326055424 |