Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic
Abstract Habitat selection and spatial usage are important components of animal behavior influencing fitness and population dynamic. Understanding the animal–habitat relationship is crucial in ecology, particularly in developing strategies for wildlife management and conservation. As this relationsh...
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crwiley:10.1002/ece3.7934 2024-06-02T08:11:56+00:00 Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic Huon, Mathilde Planque, Yann Jessopp, Mark John Cronin, Michelle Caurant, Florence Vincent, Cécile 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7934 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.7934 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.7934 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ecology and Evolution volume 11, issue 18, page 12349-12363 ISSN 2045-7758 2045-7758 journal-article 2021 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7934 2024-05-03T10:52:43Z Abstract Habitat selection and spatial usage are important components of animal behavior influencing fitness and population dynamic. Understanding the animal–habitat relationship is crucial in ecology, particularly in developing strategies for wildlife management and conservation. As this relationship is governed by environmental features and intra‐ and interspecific interactions, habitat selection of a population may vary locally between its core and edges. This is particularly true for central place foragers such as gray and harbor seals, where, in the Northeast Atlantic, the availability of habitat and prey around colonies vary at local scale. Here, we study how foraging habitat selection may vary locally under the influence of physical habitat features. Using GPS/GSM tags deployed at different gray and harbor seals’ colonies, we investigated spatial patterns and foraging habitat selection by comparing trip characteristics and home‐range similarities and fitting GAMMs to seal foraging locations and environmental data. To highlight the importance of modeling habitat selection at local scale, we fitted individual models to colonies as well as a global model. The global model suffered from issues of homogenization, while colony models showed that foraging habitat selection differed markedly between regions for both species. Despite being capable of undertaking far‐ranging trips, both gray and harbor seals selected their foraging habitat depending on local availability, mainly based on distance from the last haul‐out and bathymetry. Distance from shore and tidal current also influenced habitat preferences. Results suggest that local conditions have a strong influence on population spatial ecology, highlighting the relevance of processes occurring at fine geographical scale consistent with management within regional units. Article in Journal/Newspaper Northeast Atlantic Wiley Online Library Ecology and Evolution 11 18 12349 12363 |
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English |
description |
Abstract Habitat selection and spatial usage are important components of animal behavior influencing fitness and population dynamic. Understanding the animal–habitat relationship is crucial in ecology, particularly in developing strategies for wildlife management and conservation. As this relationship is governed by environmental features and intra‐ and interspecific interactions, habitat selection of a population may vary locally between its core and edges. This is particularly true for central place foragers such as gray and harbor seals, where, in the Northeast Atlantic, the availability of habitat and prey around colonies vary at local scale. Here, we study how foraging habitat selection may vary locally under the influence of physical habitat features. Using GPS/GSM tags deployed at different gray and harbor seals’ colonies, we investigated spatial patterns and foraging habitat selection by comparing trip characteristics and home‐range similarities and fitting GAMMs to seal foraging locations and environmental data. To highlight the importance of modeling habitat selection at local scale, we fitted individual models to colonies as well as a global model. The global model suffered from issues of homogenization, while colony models showed that foraging habitat selection differed markedly between regions for both species. Despite being capable of undertaking far‐ranging trips, both gray and harbor seals selected their foraging habitat depending on local availability, mainly based on distance from the last haul‐out and bathymetry. Distance from shore and tidal current also influenced habitat preferences. Results suggest that local conditions have a strong influence on population spatial ecology, highlighting the relevance of processes occurring at fine geographical scale consistent with management within regional units. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Huon, Mathilde Planque, Yann Jessopp, Mark John Cronin, Michelle Caurant, Florence Vincent, Cécile |
spellingShingle |
Huon, Mathilde Planque, Yann Jessopp, Mark John Cronin, Michelle Caurant, Florence Vincent, Cécile Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic |
author_facet |
Huon, Mathilde Planque, Yann Jessopp, Mark John Cronin, Michelle Caurant, Florence Vincent, Cécile |
author_sort |
Huon, Mathilde |
title |
Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic |
title_short |
Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic |
title_full |
Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic |
title_fullStr |
Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic |
title_full_unstemmed |
Fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the Northeast Atlantic |
title_sort |
fine‐scale foraging habitat selection by two diving central place foragers in the northeast atlantic |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7934 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.7934 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.7934 |
genre |
Northeast Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Northeast Atlantic |
op_source |
Ecology and Evolution volume 11, issue 18, page 12349-12363 ISSN 2045-7758 2045-7758 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7934 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
18 |
container_start_page |
12349 |
op_container_end_page |
12363 |
_version_ |
1800758222786658304 |