Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site
Chemical communication is important for many species of mammals. Male brown bears, Ursus arctos, mark trees with a secretion from glands located on their back. The recent discovery of pedal glands and pedal-marking at a site used for tree-rubbing led us to hypothesize that both types of marking form...
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ftcsic:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/229731 2024-02-11T10:09:21+01:00 Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site Revilla, Eloy Ramos Fernández, Damián Fernández-Gil, Alberto Sergie, Agnieszka Selva, Nuria Naves, Javier 2021 http://hdl.handle.net/10261/229731 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10447 en eng PeerJ Publisher's version https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10447 Sí PeerJ, (2021) http://hdl.handle.net/10261/229731 doi:10.7717/peerj.10447 33575120 open artículo http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501 2021 ftcsic https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10447 2024-01-16T11:02:52Z Chemical communication is important for many species of mammals. Male brown bears, Ursus arctos, mark trees with a secretion from glands located on their back. The recent discovery of pedal glands and pedal-marking at a site used for tree-rubbing led us to hypothesize that both types of marking form part of a more complex communication system. We describe the patterns of chemical communication used by different age and sex classes, including differences in the roles of these classes as information providers or receivers over four years at a long-term marking site. Using video recordings from a camera trap, we registered a total of 285 bear-visits and 419 behavioral events associated with chemical communication. Bears visited the site more frequently during the mating season, during which communication behaviors were more frequent. A typical visit by male bears consisted of sniffing the depressions where animals pedal mark, performing pedal-marking, sniffing the tree, and, finally, rubbing against the trunk of the tree. Adult males performed most pedal- and tree-marking (95% and 66% of the cases, respectively). Males pedal-marked and tree-rubbed in 81% and 48% of their visits and sniffed the pedal marks and the tree in 23% and 59% of visits, respectively. Adult females never pedal marked, and juveniles did so at very low frequencies. Females rubbed against the tree in just 9% of their visits; they sniffed the tree and the pedal marks in 51% and 21% of their visits, respectively. All sex and age classes performed pedaland tree-sniffing. There were significant associations between behaviors indicating that different behaviors tended to occur during the same visit and were more likely if another individual had recently visited. These associations leading to repeated marking of the site can promote the establishment of long-term marking sites. Marking sites defined by trees and the trails leading to them seem to act as communication hubs that brown bears use to share and obtain important information at population ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Ursus arctos Digital.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) PeerJ 9 e10447 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Digital.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) |
op_collection_id |
ftcsic |
language |
English |
description |
Chemical communication is important for many species of mammals. Male brown bears, Ursus arctos, mark trees with a secretion from glands located on their back. The recent discovery of pedal glands and pedal-marking at a site used for tree-rubbing led us to hypothesize that both types of marking form part of a more complex communication system. We describe the patterns of chemical communication used by different age and sex classes, including differences in the roles of these classes as information providers or receivers over four years at a long-term marking site. Using video recordings from a camera trap, we registered a total of 285 bear-visits and 419 behavioral events associated with chemical communication. Bears visited the site more frequently during the mating season, during which communication behaviors were more frequent. A typical visit by male bears consisted of sniffing the depressions where animals pedal mark, performing pedal-marking, sniffing the tree, and, finally, rubbing against the trunk of the tree. Adult males performed most pedal- and tree-marking (95% and 66% of the cases, respectively). Males pedal-marked and tree-rubbed in 81% and 48% of their visits and sniffed the pedal marks and the tree in 23% and 59% of visits, respectively. Adult females never pedal marked, and juveniles did so at very low frequencies. Females rubbed against the tree in just 9% of their visits; they sniffed the tree and the pedal marks in 51% and 21% of their visits, respectively. All sex and age classes performed pedaland tree-sniffing. There were significant associations between behaviors indicating that different behaviors tended to occur during the same visit and were more likely if another individual had recently visited. These associations leading to repeated marking of the site can promote the establishment of long-term marking sites. Marking sites defined by trees and the trails leading to them seem to act as communication hubs that brown bears use to share and obtain important information at population ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Revilla, Eloy Ramos Fernández, Damián Fernández-Gil, Alberto Sergie, Agnieszka Selva, Nuria Naves, Javier |
spellingShingle |
Revilla, Eloy Ramos Fernández, Damián Fernández-Gil, Alberto Sergie, Agnieszka Selva, Nuria Naves, Javier Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site |
author_facet |
Revilla, Eloy Ramos Fernández, Damián Fernández-Gil, Alberto Sergie, Agnieszka Selva, Nuria Naves, Javier |
author_sort |
Revilla, Eloy |
title |
Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site |
title_short |
Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site |
title_full |
Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site |
title_fullStr |
Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site |
title_full_unstemmed |
Brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site |
title_sort |
brown bear communication hubs: patterns and correlates of tree rubbing and pedal marking at a long-term marking site |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/229731 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10447 |
genre |
Ursus arctos |
genre_facet |
Ursus arctos |
op_relation |
Publisher's version https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10447 Sí PeerJ, (2021) http://hdl.handle.net/10261/229731 doi:10.7717/peerj.10447 33575120 |
op_rights |
open |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10447 |
container_title |
PeerJ |
container_volume |
9 |
container_start_page |
e10447 |
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1790609206816014336 |