Snow conditions influence grey wolf (Canis lupus) travel paths: the effect of human-created linear features
Although travel in deep snow imposes high energetic costs, animals can mitigate these costs through behavioural adaptations. For example, they can select habitats with shallower or more supportive snow. It is less well-known however, if animals select for favourable snow conditions at the scale of t...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
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NRC Research Press (a division of Canadian Science Publishing)
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/81165 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjz-2017-0041 |
| Summary: | Although travel in deep snow imposes high energetic costs, animals can mitigate these costs through behavioural adaptations. For example, they can select habitats with shallower or more supportive snow. It is less well-known however, if animals select for favourable snow conditions at the scale of the step, i.e. along the travel paths themselves. We snow-tracked grey wolves (Canis lupus L., 1758) over 187 km, and used a paired design to compare snow conditions on travel paths to snow 1 m and 10 m away. Snow on travel paths was 3.2 cm shallower than measurements 1 m away, except when wolves travelled on linear features recently compacted by humans. In those cases, the average difference in snow depth increased to 17.5 cm. Our analyses suggest that, under natural snow conditions, wolves are limited in the fine-scale differences they can achieve along their travel paths. By creating areas with highly favourable snow conditions, anthropogenic activities drastically change the winter landscape, with potential implications for energetics and predator-prey dynamics. The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author. |
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