Naivety dies with the calf: Learning effects in a heavily harvested ungulate ...

In animals, habitat selection and movement strategies may affect survival and this may be key agents in selection affection the evolution of a species. To test for learning capabilities of previous experience of hunting in a long-lived, solitary and heavily harvested ungulate, we combined longitudin...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Graf, Lukas, Thurfjell, Henrik, Ericsson, Göran, Neumann, Wiebke
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.866t1g1r7
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.866t1g1r7
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Summary:In animals, habitat selection and movement strategies may affect survival and this may be key agents in selection affection the evolution of a species. To test for learning capabilities of previous experience of hunting in a long-lived, solitary and heavily harvested ungulate, we combined longitudinal GPS-data from 84 female moose (Alces alces) with data on calf and adult survival. We tested the prediction that long-lived moose individuals would adapt their behavior over time due to experience from hunting in the absence of natural predators. We found that female moose may learn from having their calf harvested and alters their behavior the following hunting season in response to previous experience. We also found that females were more likely to be harvested when selecting more for open habitats. As a consequence, surviving females increased their use of cover in the following hunting season after losing a calf to harvest. Use of habitat with cover furthermore increases as female moose aged, indicating that ... : Please find additional information in the readme file. ...