Data from: What does the fox select? Spatial ecology of Rocky Mountain red fox during peaks and troughs of human recreation
Data files
Nov 15, 2024 version files 21.47 MB
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ECS24-0454.csv
21.47 MB
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README.md
1.37 KB
Abstract
Understanding animal behavior at the population level can be challenging, especially in the presence of intraspecific variation in behavioral tactics. Individuals within a population often vary with respect to resource exploitation and use, which may be associated with individual states (e.g., male or female) or extrinsic variation (e.g., temporal variation in food). Explicitly accounting for inter-individual variation can aid ecological insights, especially for species that exhibit high behavioral flexibility. Here, we evaluated how seasonal fluctuations in resources influenced individual-level habitat use and selection of Rocky Mountain red fox (Vulpes vulpes macroura) within Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Rocky Mountain red fox is a high-elevation subspecies of the common red fox (Vulpes vulpes), and native to North America. From 2016 – 2021, we captured and GPS collared 18 individuals (11 males, 7 females) and evaluated spatiotemporal shifts in home range characteristics and habitat selection. We observed high individual variation in home range size, with generally larger home ranges in the winter months (x̄ = 72.92 km2 [MCP], 83.65 km2 [Kernel], 27.20 km2 [Local Convex Hull]) relative to the summer (x̄ = 22.23 km2 [MCP], 23.01 km2 [Kernel], 11.11 km2 [Local Convex Hull]). Similarly, we observed substantial individual variation in habitat selection across environmental gradients. Some foxes altered their selection for habitat types between summer and winter indicating behavioral plasticity with respect to seasonal resources. Distance to human features was the primary driver for habitat selection for both seasons across foxes, and on average foxes had stronger selection for human features in the summer. These findings might indicate some foxes are concentrating on the temporal and spatial resource pulse of anthropogenic food, while others exhibited more natural tactics. Our work advances the spatial ecology of Rocky Mountain red fox, identified variation in space use tactics associated with humans and natural resources among red foxes in a heavily recreated area, and demonstrates how human activity can influence the spatial behavioral of a carnivore within a national park.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dv41ns27v
Description of the data and file structure
We investigated how seasonal fluctuations in resources influenced individual-level habitat use and selection of the Rocky Mountain Red Fox within Grand Teton National Park. From 2016 – 2021, we captured and GPS collared 18 individuals (11 males, 7 females) and evaluated spatiotemporal shifts in home range characteristics and habitat selection.
Files and variables
File: ECS24-0454.csv
Description:
Variables
- AID: Animal Identification
- used: used or available location
- d2hf: distance to human feature
- doug_f: proportion of Douglas fir
- hli_f: Heat Load Index
- lodge_f: proportion of Lodgepole pine
- meadow_f: proportion of meadow
- nbr_f: Normalized Burn Ratio
- tpi500: Topographic Position Index
- vrm500: Vector Ruggedness Measure
- Season: Winter or Summer
Code/software
Program R version 4.1.1 was used for all statistical analyses. R packages " adehabitatHR ", "lme4", and "car" for analyses. All methods can be found within the published manuscript " What does the fox select? Spatial ecology of Rocky Mountain red fox during peaks and troughs of human recreation"
