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- Title
A seasonal pulse of ungulate neonates influences space use by carnivores in a multi‐predator, multi‐prey system.
- Authors
Ruprecht, Joel; Forrester, Tavis D.; Jackson, Nathan J.; Clark, Darren A.; Wisdom, Michael J.; Rowland, Mary M.; Smith, Joshua B.; Stewart, Kelley M.; Levi, Taal
- Abstract
The behavioral mechanisms by which predators encounter prey are poorly resolved. In particular, the extent to which predators engage in active search for prey versus incidentally encountering them has not been well studied in many systems and particularly not for neonate prey during the birth pulse. Parturition of many large herbivores occurs during a short and predictable temporal window in which young are highly vulnerable to predation. Our study aims to determine how a suite of carnivores responds to the seasonal pulse of newborn ungulates using contemporaneous global positioning system (GPS) locations of four species of predators and two species of prey. We used step‐selection functions to assess whether coyotes, cougars, black bears, and bobcats encountered parturient adult female ungulates more often than expected by chance in a low‐density population of mule deer and a high‐density population of elk. We then assessed whether the carnivore species that encountered parturient prey more often than expected by chance did so by shifting their habitat use toward areas with a high probability of encountering neonates. None of the four carnivore species encountered GPS‐collared parturient mule deer more often than expected by chance. By contrast, we determined that cougar and male bear movements positioned them in the proximity of GPS‐collared parturient elk more often than expected by chance which may provide evidence of searching behavior. Although both male bears and cougars exhibited behavior consistent with active search for neonates, only male bears used elk parturition habitat in a way that dynamically tracked the phenology of the elk birth pulse suggesting that maximizing encounters with juvenile elk was a motivation when selecting resources. Our results suggest that there is high interspecific and intersexual variability in foraging strategies among large mammalian predators and their prey.
- Subjects
UNGULATES; PUMAS; MULE deer; NEWBORN infants; CARNIVOROUS animals; GLOBAL Positioning System; DEER populations
- Publication
Ecology & Evolution (20457758), 2022, Vol 12, Issue 10, p1
- ISSN
2045-7758
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/ece3.9389