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- Title
The effect of depletion and predictability of distinct food patches on the timing of aggression in red deer stags
- Authors
Hoi, H.; Staines, B. W.; Schmidt, K. T.; Seivwright, L. J.
- Abstract
For group-foraging ungulates forage is generally widely and relatively evenly dispersed. However, for free-ranging red deer, Cervus elaphus, supplementary winter feeding provides distinct patches of predictable food. These patches differ in size, but also in temporal distribution and depletion rate. Interference competition is known to increase with increasing spatial clumping (decreasing patch size), but the influence of temporal clumping and the predictability of food occurrence has received much less attention. Therefore in this study we investigated the effects of different degrees of spatial and temporal clumping of food on interference competition during feeding. Patch size was the main parameter influencing participation in feeding as well as interference competition during feeding the respective patch. Temporal dispersion and the predictability of food occurrence however, were important parameters for the timing of aggressive interaction. Generally, aggression occurs during feeding and increases with decreasingpatch size. But when depletion rate was high, food availability was predictably short and the patch occurred predictably (such as hay), middle ranking stags increased aggression already prior to feeding at the respective patch. We suggest that in this way they confirmed hierarchy outside feeding on the quickly depleted patch and as a result gained actual feeding time when feeding on the respective patch. With the patch occurring predictably but varying in size, the number of participating subordinates varied concomitantly with variation in patchsize. Subordinates assessed patch profitability and left without having fed when patch size was too small for an efficient participation.When patch size was predictably small enough to be defended exclusively (feed blocks), subordinate stags did not assess profitability each time but did not participate at all in feeding at the respective patch. The relative importance of these various food-related parameters(pa
- Subjects
ANIMAL behavior; DEER
- Publication
Ecography, 1998, Vol 21, Issue 4, p415
- ISSN
0906-7590
- Publication type
Article