Factors affecting the spatiotemporal distribution of moose, with a special emphasis on supplementary feeding

• Main Author: van Beest, Floris Michiel
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universitetet i Oslo 2010
• Subjects: large herbivores; management; moose; VDP::Mathematics and natural science: 400::Zoology and botany: 480; Norway; Alces alces
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/132012

Doktorgradsavhandling ved Universitetet i Oslo ved det matematisk- naturvitenskapelige fakultet, nr 1016. Large herbivores constitute an important natural resource and are actively managed to meet economic, conservation and environmental objectives. To alleviate the potential of resource limitation and damage to commercially important habitats in areas with high population densities, the provisioning of artificial or supplementary forage has become a popular wildlife management intervention throughout Europe and North America. However, the usefulness of supplementary feeding is equivocal and little is known about how it affects spatiotemporal distribution patterns of large herbivores. The main aim of this thesis is to quantify the effect of supplementary feeding on the spatiotemporal distribution of moose (Alces alces L. 1758) living in southern Norway. I used locations of free-ranging GPS (global positioning system) collared moose (N = 26 in summer and N = 32 in winter) with access to supplementary feeding stations to estimate habitat selection and home range size as a function of feeding status (i.e. feeding station users vs. non-users), variation in browse quantity and quality, and also in terms of local climate and individual characteristics. To evaluate fine-scale distribution patterns and foraging decisions around supplementary feeding stations I employed 2 independent datasets (GPS data and browsing estimates) from two study areas (in Telemark and Hedmark counties) that differ in the length of their feeding history. I apply central-place foraging theory to explain the observed patterns. My results indicate that supplementary feeding affects the spatiotemporal distribution of moose only at intermediate to fine spatial scales during winter, with feeding station users behaving as central-place foragers. However, feeding station users did not differ in their large-scale habitat selection patterns or home range size compared to non-users. Instead, moose habitat selection was driven by a scale-dependent ...