E-Thesis 192 views
Environmental and individual-level drivers of movements and space use in three ungulate species / ALEXIS MALAGNINO
Swansea University Author: ALEXIS MALAGNINO
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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.63705
Abstract
In a context where human-wildlife conflicts are expected to be more frequent due to the expansion and intensification of human activities (e.g. tourism, agriculture, urbanisation, outdoor sports), instituting wildlife management policies promoting sustainable coexistence is more needed than ever. In...
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Swansea, Wales, UK
2023
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| Supervisor: | Börger, Luca. and Loison, Anne. |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa63705 |
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| Abstract: |
In a context where human-wildlife conflicts are expected to be more frequent due to the expansion and intensification of human activities (e.g. tourism, agriculture, urbanisation, outdoor sports), instituting wildlife management policies promoting sustainable coexistence is more needed than ever. Investigating what are the main drivers of ungulates population dynamics and their responses to global changes (i.e. climate change and landscape anthropization), is then crucial if we aim to infer efficient management practices. Consequently, and as population dynamics and distribution are often the results of fine-scaled behaviours made by individual, we proposed through this thesis work, to more particularly explore the link between spatial behaviours, internal factors and environmental constraints. Based on the data from the monitoring of three wild ungulates species, i.e. roe deer Capreolus capreolus, mediterannean mouflon Ovis gmelini musimon x Ovis sp., and chamois Rupicapra rupicapra, we first showed that age was a major determinant of animals’ spatial behaviours. During the rutting period, older roe deer males travelled greater daily distances than younger males due to patrolling behaviours for territory defence, whereas older mouflon males travelled less than younger males, which often adopted coursing tactics to mate with females. During the birth period, reproductive females had smaller home ranges than non-reproductive females in roe deer, whereas no marked differences were observed in mouflon females. The most marked age-related variation in space use of mouflon occurred outside the reproductive periods; specifically, the oldest individuals travelled less far and had a smaller home range (females only) than younger individuals. Similarly, in another study, we also showed that older chamois females visited locations with higher forage quantity than younger females, possibly because of their higher experience or locomotor senescence. We then demonstrated that external factors such as temperature and local landscape constraints, may also shape animals’ behavioural responses. Individuals which had access to more thermal refuges such as forests and northern slopes, tended to increase their use of these habitats during days of high temperatures. This however was associated with opportunity costs, as thermal refuges typically offered decreased forage conditions, forcing in return these same individuals to increase their time spent foraging and relocating in order to gather sufficient resources. Overall, our results demonstrated that individual variability in age and in local landscape constraints induces among-individual heterogeneity in behavioural tactics, which are likely to result into individual differences in energy budgets that remains now to be explored in further studies. |
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| Item Description: |
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| Keywords: |
Age, experience, senescence, reproductive constraints, foraging, behavioural thermoregulation, thermal refuges, opportunity costs, activity budgets |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |