Hunting, but not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural tolerance to human disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota
Data files
May 01, 2025 version files 101.64 KB
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README.md
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Zenth.et.al.2025.fid.marmot.fin.csv
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Abstract
Humans are often perceived as predators by free-living animals, and thus, even non-consumptive human activities such as outdoor recreation may trigger behavioural and physiological responses, often with negative consequences on individual fitness and population persistence. Nonetheless, there is growing evidence that wildlife can also have remarkable behavioural tolerance, but no clear picture has yet emerged regarding the mechanisms explaining different responses to humans. We investigated the effect of different types of human activity – hunting and outdoor recreation – on behavioural tolerance to humans in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota. Marmots were studied in areas with contrasting protection regimes and under different levels of outdoor recreation in Northern Italy over three seasons (2021-2023). Flight initiation distance (i.e. the distance at which an animal escapes from an approaching person) was used as a proxy of tolerance to human disturbance and tested against levels of outdoor recreation and hunting using linear mixed modelling. Marmots were more sensitive to human disturbance in hunted as compared to protected areas, whereas we did not find evidence for changes in behavioural tolerance when exposed to varying levels of outdoor recreation. In turn, our study suggests that hunting, by reducing behavioural tolerance to humans, could exacerbate the negative effects of non-lethal human activities on wildlife. This has implications for conservation and management strategies aimed at promoting coexistence in human-altered landscapes.
Description of the data and file structure
Data used for the Analysis for the article “Hunting, but not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural tolerance to human disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota" published in Wildlife Biology (2025).
Principal Investigator: Friederike Zenth, friederike.zenth92@gmail.com
Files and variables
File: Zenth.et.al.2025_marmot.fid.csv
Description: Data used for the Analysis for the article “Hunting, but not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural tolerance to human disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota" published in Wildlife Biology (2025).
Variables
- id_fid: unique identifier for each contucted flight-initiation-distance(fid) test
- date: date of the fid test
- jdate: Julian day of the fid test
- time: time of the day of the fid test
- year: year of the fid test
- uid : unique ID of the marmot test subject
- family: marmot family group name of the test subject
- fid_y_latitude: latitude coordinate of the location of the fid test
- fid_x_longitude: longitude coordinate of the location of the fid test
- studyarea: name of the study area (se = Seiser Alm, Bozen, IT; pns = Stelvio National Park, SO, IT)
- capture: factor with two levels indicating whether a marmot was previously captured and marked or not
- experimenter: name of the person who observed the test subject and scored behaviour during an fid test.
- walker: name of the person who approached the marmot during the fid test
- sex: sex of the marmot test subject (m = male; f = female)
- age_class: age class of the marmot test subhect (1yo <= 1 years old; ad > 1 years old).
- consp.5tot: number of conspecifics within 5 m of the marmot test subject at the start of the fid test
- behavior: behaviour of the marmot test subject at the start of the fid test (forage = marmot foraging, rest = marmot resting, medium_act = marmot engaged in any other activity but foraging or resting).
- fid.1: distance in meters between the walker and the marmot test subject at which the marmot initiated a flight for the first time during the test
- burrow_distance = distance between the initial position of the marmot test subject and the burrow into which it fled from the walker during the fid test
- angle: angle in which the walker approached the marmot during the fid test (flat = walker approached in flat terrain, up = walker approached the marmot walking up a slope (i.e. up a hill in mountainous terrain) towards the marmot, down = walker approached the marmot walking slightly down a slope.
- ac.consp = alarm calling of conspecifics during an fid test (0 = no alarm calling of conspecifics; 1 = alarm calling of conspecifics recorded)
- past_hunt_kde = kernel density estimate of past hunting intensity around the fid test
- past_hunt_kde = kernel density estimate of current hunting intensity around the fid test
- COI = cumulated outdoor activity index (0 = no activity, 1 = highest comparable activity in the area)
Csv. file which can be viewed in Microsoft Excel or R 4.3.1 (R Core Team 2023) in RStudio 2023.09.1+494 (Posit Team 2023).