S. Périquet, N. Courbin, E. Banda, A. J. Loveridge, D. W. Macdonald, E. Revilla, H. Fritz, M. Valeix
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Previous work has focused on how prey availability and fear of people affect apex predators' habitat selection, but few have studied the effects of intraguild interactions. Patterns of co-occupancy between sympatric carnivores have started to be well described, but understanding the underlying habitat selection processes is lacking. We evaluated whether the risk of encountering African lions (Panthera leo) influences habitat selection by spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta, hyaena hereafter) using GPS-collar data and two approaches: (1) resource selection functions considering the static long-term risk of encountering lions, and (2) step selection functions considering the dynamic, immediate risk of encountering lions. We explored the interplay between the risk of encountering lions, vegetation type and moonlight illumination, and examined individual variation in habitat selection. As expected, hyaenas did not avoid areas intensively used by lions, and there was even a positive effect of the long-term risk of encountering lions on habitat selection by hyaenas. As in other study sites, this likely arises because hyaenas select the same areas as lions. At the finer scale, unexpectedly, hyaenas did not generally move away from lions. We believe this occurs because hyaenas can sometimes be attracted to lions because of scavenging opportunities or because they outnumber lions and are likely to win an aggressive encounter. These two circumstances can lead to highly contrasting outcomes and highlight the high dynamics of intraguild interactions. This also illustrates the limits of GPS-based studies that lack crucial information about the context of interactions. While at the population level, we detected a selection for open vegetation areas, which are rich in prey in the study ecosystem and potentially good hunting grounds for cursorial predators, such as hyaenas; our results show a very high inter-individual heterogeneity underlying this population level result. Our work therefore illustrates the importance of investigating individual habitat selection.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Zoology publishes high-quality research papers that are original and are of broad interest. The Editors seek studies that are hypothesis-driven and interdisciplinary in nature. Papers on animal behaviour, ecology, physiology, anatomy, developmental biology, evolution, systematics, genetics and genomics will be considered; research that explores the interface between these disciplines is strongly encouraged. Studies dealing with geographically and/or taxonomically restricted topics should test general hypotheses, describe novel findings or have broad implications.
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