Life‐history attributes and resource dynamics determine intraspecific home‐range sizes in Carnivora

Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation

Clare Duncan²  Erlend B. Nilsen¹  John D. C. Linnell¹ 

[1] Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway;Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK

关键词: Body mass;    carnivore;    home range;    NDVI;    resource availability;    space‐use;   

DOI  :  10.1002/rse2.6

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

Home ranges capture a fundamental aspect of animal ecology, resulting from interactions between metabolic demands and resource availability. Yet, the understanding of their emergence is currently limited by lack of consideration of the covariation between intrinsic and extrinsic drivers. We analysed intraspecific home-range size (HRS) variation with respect to life histories and remotely sensed proxies of resource dynamics for 21 Carnivora species. Our best model explained over half of the observed variability in intraspecific HRS across populations of multiple species. At the species level, median HRS was smaller for omnivorous species and increased with increasing body mass (model R² = 0.66). Here, HRS scaled with body mass at 0.80, a value much closer to the expected allometric scaling of 0.75 than previously reported. At the intraspecific level, while much variation was driven by intrinsic factors (body mass, diet, social organization and sex; R² = 0.39), inclusion of spatiotemporal variation in extrinsic factors (average resource availability and seasonality) enabled explanation of a further 13% of observed variability in HRS. We found no evidence for interactions between intrinsic and extrinsic HRS drivers, suggesting a generally ubiquitous influence of resource availability on space-use. Our findings illustrate how spatial and temporal information on resource dynamics as derived by satellite data can significantly improve our understanding of HRS variation at the interspecific and intraspecific levels, and urge caution in interpreting HRS allometry in the face of large intraspecific variation. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of considering life-history constraints in modelling intraspecific space-use and HRS.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC-ND   
© 2015 The Authors Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Zoological Society of London.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.