Behavioral “bycatch” from camera trap surveys yields insights on prey responses to human‐mediated predation risk

• Published in: Ecology and Evolution
• Main Authors: Burton, A. Cole, Beirne, Christopher, Sun, Catherine, Granados, Alys, Procko, Michael, Chen, Cheng, Fennell, Mitchell, Constantinou, Alexia, Colton, Chris, Tjaden‐McClement, Katie, Fisher, Jason T., Burgar, Joanna
• Other Authors: Alberta Conservation Association, Alberta Environment and Parks, Canada Research Chairs, Innotech Alberta, Mitacs, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada, University of British Columbia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2022
• Subjects: Alces alces; caribou; Rangifer tarandus
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9108; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.9108; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.9108

Abstract Human disturbance directly affects animal populations and communities, but indirect effects of disturbance on species behaviors are less well understood. For instance, disturbance may alter predator activity and cause knock‐on effects to predator‐sensitive foraging in prey. Camera traps provide an emerging opportunity to investigate such disturbance‐mediated impacts to animal behaviors across multiple scales. We used camera trap data to test predictions about predator‐sensitive behavior in three ungulate species (caribou Rangifer tarandus white‐tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus moose, Alces alces ) across two western boreal forest landscapes varying in disturbance. We quantified behavior as the number of camera trap photos per detection event and tested its relationship to inferred human‐mediated predation risk between a landscape with greater industrial disturbance and predator activity and a “control” landscape with lower human and predator activity. We also assessed the finer‐scale influence on behavior of variation in predation risk (relative to habitat variation) across camera sites within the more disturbed landscape. We predicted that animals in areas with greater predation risk (e.g., more wolf activity, less cover) would travel faster past cameras and generate fewer photos per detection event, while animals in areas with less predation risk would linger (rest, forage, investigate), generating more photos per event. Our predictions were supported at the landscape‐level, as caribou and moose had more photos per event in the control landscape where disturbance‐mediated predation risk was lower. At a finer‐scale within the disturbed landscape, no prey species showed a significant behavioral response to wolf activity, but the number of photos per event decreased for white‐tailed deer with increasing line of sight (m) along seismic lines (i.e., decreasing visual cover), consistent with a predator‐sensitive response. The presence of juveniles was associated with shorter behavioral events for ...