Spatiotemporal variability in resources affects herbivore home range formation in structurally contrasting and unpredictable agricultural landscapes
- We investigated whether a given landscape structure affects the level of home range size adaptation in response to resource variability. We tested whether increasing resource variability forces herbivorous mammals to increase their home ranges. In 2014 and 2015 we collared 40 European brown hares (Lepus europaeus) with GPS-tags to record hare movements in two regions in Germany with differing landscape structures. We examined hare home range sizes in relation to resource availability and variability by using the normalized difference vegetation index as a proxy. Hares in simple landscapes showed increasing home range sizes with increasing resource variability, whereas hares in complex landscapes did not enlarge their home range. Animals in complex landscapes have the possibility to include various landscape elements within their home ranges and are more resilient against resource variability. But animals in simple landscapes with few elements experience shortcomings when resource variability becomes high. The increase in home rangeWe investigated whether a given landscape structure affects the level of home range size adaptation in response to resource variability. We tested whether increasing resource variability forces herbivorous mammals to increase their home ranges. In 2014 and 2015 we collared 40 European brown hares (Lepus europaeus) with GPS-tags to record hare movements in two regions in Germany with differing landscape structures. We examined hare home range sizes in relation to resource availability and variability by using the normalized difference vegetation index as a proxy. Hares in simple landscapes showed increasing home range sizes with increasing resource variability, whereas hares in complex landscapes did not enlarge their home range. Animals in complex landscapes have the possibility to include various landscape elements within their home ranges and are more resilient against resource variability. But animals in simple landscapes with few elements experience shortcomings when resource variability becomes high. The increase in home range size, the movement related increase in energy expenditure, and a decrease in hare abundances can have severe implications for conservation of mammals in anthropogenic landscapes. Hence, conservation management could benefit from a better knowledge about fine-scaled effects of resource variability on movement behaviour.…
Verfasserangaben: | Wiebke UllmannORCiDGND, Christina FischerORCiD, Karin Pirhofer-WalzlORCiD, Stephanie Kramer-SchadtORCiD, Niels BlaumORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0676-2 |
ISSN: | 0921-2973 |
ISSN: | 1572-9761 |
Titel des übergeordneten Werks (Englisch): | Landscape ecology |
Verlag: | Springer |
Verlagsort: | Dordrecht |
Publikationstyp: | Wissenschaftlicher Artikel |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Datum der Erstveröffentlichung: | 18.07.2018 |
Erscheinungsjahr: | 2018 |
Datum der Freischaltung: | 08.10.2021 |
Freies Schlagwort / Tag: | European brown hare; GPS tracking; Home range size; Lepus europaeus; Resource availability; Resource variability; Telemetry |
Band: | 33 |
Ausgabe: | 9 |
Seitenanzahl: | 13 |
Erste Seite: | 1505 |
Letzte Seite: | 1517 |
Fördernde Institution: | Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF); long-term research platform "AgroScapeLab Quillow" (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V.); DFGGerman Research |
Organisationseinheiten: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Biochemie und Biologie |
DDC-Klassifikation: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie |
Peer Review: | Referiert |