Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?

Increasing ungulate densities all over Europe are intensifying the ongoing human-wildlife conflict, embodied by mainly economical losses through damages in forestry and agriculture. Given the current circumstances, farmers and forest owners prefer a decrease in ungulate numbers through direct popula...

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Main Author: Berndt, Carolin Veronika
Format: Other/Unknown Material
Language:English
Published: SLU/Dept. of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies 2021
Subjects:
ABR
Online Access:https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/17241/
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spelling ftsluppsalast:oai:stud.epsilon.slu.se:17241 2023-05-15T17:45:03+02:00 Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour? Klövvilts reaktion av ljudsystem : kan simulerad risk påverka beteende? Berndt, Carolin Veronika 2021 https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/17241/ eng eng SLU/Dept. of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/17241/ ungulates landscape of fear behavioural response predation risk playback experiment ABR management strategies H2 2021 ftsluppsalast 2022-09-10T18:13:05Z Increasing ungulate densities all over Europe are intensifying the ongoing human-wildlife conflict, embodied by mainly economical losses through damages in forestry and agriculture. Given the current circumstances, farmers and forest owners prefer a decrease in ungulate numbers through direct population control, whereas other stakeholders, such as hunters, wildlife watchers or photographers, prefer higher wildlife numbers. This challenging contradiction requires novel management approaches. The landscape of fear theory implies behavioural changes in prey by not the direct killing, but the fear of predators, which can cause trophic cascades down to vegetation level. Here, I used Automated Behavioural Response systems (ABR) to experimentally induce this landscape of fear for ungulates in two study areas in southern and northern Sweden and to evaluate three behavioural responses: leaving rate, foraging behaviour, and vigilance behaviour. I used different risk sounds (human, dog and wolf sounds) and a non-risky control sound (different native bird species). The ABRs were placed along the edges of crop fields and close to other lure types, such as salt licks, to test for fear responses in situations where resources were plentiful. The results show that ungulates were significantly more likely to abandon the site when they were exposed to risk sounds than to control sounds, where the effect of the human sound exceeded the other risk sounds by far, and therefore supports the ‘human super-predator’ theory. Furthermore, they decreased foraging time and increased vigilance levels for risky sounds. Distance of the animal to the sound source played an important role for behavioural responses, as well as group size (only applied for fallow deer), which reflects a known anti-predatory strategy. With increasing distance, ungulates left the area fewer times, increased their foraging time, and decreased their time being vigilant. The same behavioural response patterns were shown for larger fallow deer groups compared to single ... Other/Unknown Material Northern Sweden Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences: Epsilon Archive for Student Projects Watchers ENVELOPE(-56.115,-56.115,50.750,50.750)
institution Open Polar
collection Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences: Epsilon Archive for Student Projects
op_collection_id ftsluppsalast
language English
topic ungulates
landscape of fear
behavioural response
predation risk
playback experiment
ABR
management strategies
spellingShingle ungulates
landscape of fear
behavioural response
predation risk
playback experiment
ABR
management strategies
Berndt, Carolin Veronika
Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?
topic_facet ungulates
landscape of fear
behavioural response
predation risk
playback experiment
ABR
management strategies
description Increasing ungulate densities all over Europe are intensifying the ongoing human-wildlife conflict, embodied by mainly economical losses through damages in forestry and agriculture. Given the current circumstances, farmers and forest owners prefer a decrease in ungulate numbers through direct population control, whereas other stakeholders, such as hunters, wildlife watchers or photographers, prefer higher wildlife numbers. This challenging contradiction requires novel management approaches. The landscape of fear theory implies behavioural changes in prey by not the direct killing, but the fear of predators, which can cause trophic cascades down to vegetation level. Here, I used Automated Behavioural Response systems (ABR) to experimentally induce this landscape of fear for ungulates in two study areas in southern and northern Sweden and to evaluate three behavioural responses: leaving rate, foraging behaviour, and vigilance behaviour. I used different risk sounds (human, dog and wolf sounds) and a non-risky control sound (different native bird species). The ABRs were placed along the edges of crop fields and close to other lure types, such as salt licks, to test for fear responses in situations where resources were plentiful. The results show that ungulates were significantly more likely to abandon the site when they were exposed to risk sounds than to control sounds, where the effect of the human sound exceeded the other risk sounds by far, and therefore supports the ‘human super-predator’ theory. Furthermore, they decreased foraging time and increased vigilance levels for risky sounds. Distance of the animal to the sound source played an important role for behavioural responses, as well as group size (only applied for fallow deer), which reflects a known anti-predatory strategy. With increasing distance, ungulates left the area fewer times, increased their foraging time, and decreased their time being vigilant. The same behavioural response patterns were shown for larger fallow deer groups compared to single ...
format Other/Unknown Material
author Berndt, Carolin Veronika
author_facet Berndt, Carolin Veronika
author_sort Berndt, Carolin Veronika
title Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?
title_short Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?
title_full Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?
title_fullStr Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?
title_full_unstemmed Behavioural Responses of Ungulates to Sound Systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?
title_sort behavioural responses of ungulates to sound systems : can simulated risk influence behaviour?
publisher SLU/Dept. of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies
publishDate 2021
url https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/17241/
long_lat ENVELOPE(-56.115,-56.115,50.750,50.750)
geographic Watchers
geographic_facet Watchers
genre Northern Sweden
genre_facet Northern Sweden
op_relation https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/17241/
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