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155 results for “large herbivores”
EJR01 Foraging decisions underlying restricted space-use: effects of fire and forage maturation on large herbivore nutrient uptake on Konza Prairie
Recent models suggest that herbivores optimize nutrient intake by selecting patches of low to intermediate vegetation biomass. We assessed the application of this hypothesis to plains bison (Bison bison) in an experimental grassland managed with fire by estimating daily rates of nutrient intake in relation to grass biomass and by measuring patch selection in experimental watersheds in which grass biomass was manipulated by prescribed burning. Digestible crude protein content of grass declined linearly with increasing biomass, and the mean digestible protein content relative to grass biomass was greater in burned watersheds than watersheds not burned that spring (intercept; F1,251 = 50.57, P < 0.0001). Linking these values to published functional response parameters, ad libitum protein intake, and protein expenditure parameters, Fryxell's (Am. Nat., 1991, 138, 478) model predicted that the daily rate of protein intake should be highest when bison feed in grasslands with 400 - 600 kg/ha. In burned grassland sites, where bison spend most of their time, availability of grass biomass ranged between 40 and 3650 kg/ha, bison selected foraging areas of roughly 690 kg/ha, close to the value for protein intake maximization predicted by the model. The seasonal net protein intake predicted for large grazers in this study suggest feeding in burned grassland can be more beneficial for nutrient uptake relative to unburned grassland as long as grass regrowth is possible. Foraging site selection for grass patches of low to intermediate biomass help explain patterns of uniform space use reported previously for large grazers in fire-prone systems. This data set was used to test the forage maturation hypothesis in the Konza Prairie bison enclosure from 2012-2013. Our objectives were to quantify foraging site selection of Plains bison in order to determine if bison in a fire-prone grassland selected sites of low-to-intermediate forage biomass as posited by Fryxell’s (1991) forage mat
White spruce seedling demography and browsing by snowshoe hares inside and outside the large herbivore exclosures located along the Tanana River, summer 2014
White spruce seedling height, age, basal diameter, browsing history, and density were measured inside and outside the seven remaining paired exclosure and control plots located along the Tanana River floodplain in the summer of 2014.
Preference and familiarity mediate spatial responses of a large herbivore to experimental manipulation of resource availability: datasets
<p>Publicly available dataset for:</p> <p>N. Ranc, P.R. Moorcroft, K.W. Hansen, F. Ossi, T. Sforna, E. Ferraro, A. Brugnoli & F. Cagnacci. 2020. Preference and familiarity mediate spatial responses of a large herbivore to experimental manipulation of resource availability. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68046-7</p>
Body size modulates the extent of seasonal diet switching by large mammalian herbivores in Yellowstone National Park
<div> <p><span>Large mammalian herbivores vary their diets markedly with changes in resource availability yet the ways that seasonal changes in individual foraging behaviors scale up to reconfigure complex trophic networks are poorly understood. Two years of dietary DNA data enabled us to quantify fine-grained dietary variation within and among populations of five large herbivore species at Yellowstone National Park, revealing remarkably strong and significant correlations between body size and five key indicators of diet seasonality (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.71–0.80). Data from GPS collars implicated seasonal changes in each species' movement- and habitat-use patterns as potential determinants of foraging constraints and specializations that give rise to the strong allometry in diet composition. Bison and elk showed relatively muted seasonal changes compared to smaller species that exhibited stronger switches. Whereas the taxonomic breadth of individual diets contracted for all species in winter, larger species generally consumed a greater functional diversity of plants and thus maintained more unique dietary niches under resource limitations.</span></p> </div>
Functional traits—not nativeness—shape the effects of large mammalian herbivores on plant communities
<p>Large mammalian herbivores (megafauna) have experienced extinctions and declines since prehistory. Introduced megafauna have partly counteracted these losses yet are thought to have unusually negative effects compared to native megafauna. Using a meta-analysis of 3,995 plot-scale plant abundance and diversity responses from 221 studies, we found no evidence that megafauna impacts were shaped by nativeness, 'invasiveness', 'feralness', coevolutionary history, or functional and phylogenetic novelty. Nor was there evidence that introduced megafauna facilitate introduced plants more than native megafauna. Instead, we found strong evidence that functional traits shaped megafauna impacts, with larger-bodied and bulk-feeding megafauna promoting plant diversity. Our work suggests that trait-based ecology provides better insight into interactions between megafauna and plants than concepts of nativeness.</p>
Livestock activity shifts large herbivore temporal distributions to their crepuscular edges
<p>Wildlife species are transitioning to greater crepuscular and nocturnal activity in response to high human densities. This plasticity in temporal niches may partially mitigate the impacts of human activity but may also result in underestimating human effects on species foraging, predator-prey relationships, and community level interactions. We deployed remote cameras to characterize shifts in herbivore diel activity in protected habitat vs pastoralist landscapes. We then compared species traits including body mass, dietary preferences, and behavioral characteristics as potential predictors of species sensitivity to livestock. Our data capture a significant temporal shift away from core cattle activity for nearly every herbivore species in our study, leading to more crepuscular activity patterns. As livestock were primarily diurnal and predators primarily nocturnal in pastoralist habitat, species that decreased their overlap with livestock were more likely to increase their overlap with potential predators. Other than species' typical daytime activity levels, we found no evidence that any particular trait significantly predicted temporal shifts in response to livestock. Instead, species generally trended toward greater activity levels at dawn, suggesting that cattle have a homogenizing effect on community-wide activity patterns. Our findings highlight how cohabitation with livestock can profoundly alter the temporal niches of wild herbivores. Shifts in diel activity patterns may reduce herbivore foraging time or efficiency and potentially have cascading shifts on predator-prey dynamics. Given that species traits could not predict responses to livestock, our analysis suggests that conservation strategies should consider each species separately when designing interventions for wildlife management.</p>
Large herbivore biomass in protected areas
<p>Large herbivores provide key ecosystem processes, but have experienced massive historical losses and are under intense pressure, leaving current ecosystems with dramatically simplified faunas relative to the long-term evolutionary norm. Hampered by a shifting baseline, natural levels of large-herbivore biomass are poorly understood and seldom targeted. Here, we present a collation of large-herbivore biomass data from published sources as well as personal communication. The data includes continent, ecosystem name, latitude, longitude, large herbivore biomass in kg/km<sup>2</sup> and the source of the data. It can be used together with net primary productivity (e.g., using satellite-derived NPP retrieved from http://files.ntsg.umt.edu/data/NTSG_Products/MOD17/GeoTIFF/MOD17A3/GeoTIFF_30arcsec/) to explore the scaling relationship between producer and consumer.</p>
Data from: Dynamic balancing of risks and rewards in a large herbivore: Further extending predator-prey concepts to road ecology
<p>Animal behavior is shaped by the ability to identify risks and profitably balance the levels of risks encountered with the payoffs experienced. Anthropogenic disturbances like roads generate novel risks and opportunities that wildlife must accurately perceive and respond to. Basic concepts in predator-prey ecology are often used to understand responses of animals to roads (e.g., increased vigilance, selection for cover in their vicinity). However, prey often display complex behaviors such as modulating space use given varying risks and rewards, and it is unclear if such dynamic balancing is used by animals in the context of road crossings.</p> <p>We tested whether animals dynamically balance risks and rewards relative to roads using extensive field -based and GPS collar data from elk in Yoho National Park (British Columbia, Canada) where a major highway completely bisects their range during most of the year.</p> <p>We analyzed elk behavior by combining hidden Markov movement models with a step-selection function framework. Rewards were indexed by a dynamic map of available forage biomass and risks were indexed by road crossings and traffic volumes.</p> <p>We found that elk generally selected intermediate and high forage biomass and avoided crossing the road. Most of the time, elk modulated their behavior given varying risks and rewards. When crossing the highway compared with not crossing, elk selected for greater forage biomass and this selection was stronger as the number of highway crossings increased. However, with traffic volume, elk only balanced foraging rewards when they crossed a single time during a travel sequence.</p> <p>Using a road ecology system, we empirically tested an important component of predator-prey ecology – the ability to dynamically modulate behavior in response to varying levels of risks and rewards. Such a test articulates how decision-making processes that consider the spatiotemporal variation in risks and rewards allow animals to successfully and profitably navigate busy roads. Applying well-developed concepts in predator-prey theory helps understand how animals respond to anthropogenic disturbances and anticipate the adaptive capacity for individuals and populations to adjust to rapidly changing environments.</p>
Large herbivores distribution modelling
<p>These are data of large herbivores occurrence in the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique</p> <p>The occurrence data of large herbivores (present = 1, not present =0) and predictors are packaged in one file named “Large herbivores distribution modelling”. Within these files, the following data objects exist:</p> <ul> <li>The occurrence data of elephants, buffalos, zebra, kudu, nyala and impala are in separate .csv files. Each file consists of six columns with 1) grid number, 2) rivers categories in km, 3) settlements categories in km, 4) grazing areas categories in km, 5) habitat types, and 6) rainfall categories in mm;</li> </ul> <p>R script that can be used to fit the full large herbivore models with five predictors in “R 3.5.1 software”</p>
Predation risk drives long-term shifts in migratory behavior and demography in a large herbivore population
<p>Migration is an adaptive life-history strategy that helps individuals across taxa maximize fitness by obtaining forage and avoiding predation risk. The mechanisms driving migratory changes are poorly understood, and links between migratory behavior, space use, and demographic consequences are rare. Here, we use a nearly 20-year record of individual-based monitoring of elk (<em>Cervus canadensis</em>) to test hypotheses for changing patterns of migration in a large herbivore, elk (<em>Cervus canadensis</em>), in and adjacent to a large protected area in Banff National Park (BNP), Canada. We test whether bottom-up (forage quality) or top-down (predation risk) factors explained trends in i) the proportion of individuals using 5 different migratory tactics, ii) differences in survival rates of migratory tactics during migration and whilst on summer ranges, iii) cause-specific mortality by wolves and grizzly bears, and iv) population abundance. We found dramatic shifts in migration consistent with behavioral plasticity in individual choice of annual migratory routes. Shifts were inconsistent with exposure to the bottom-up benefits of migration. Instead, exposure to landscape gradients in predation risk caused by exploitation outside the protected area drove migratory shifts. Carnivore exploitation outside the protected area led to higher survival rates for female elk remaining resident or migrating outside the protected area. Cause-specific mortality aligned with exposure to predation risk along migratory routes and summer ranges. Wolf predation risk was higher on migratory routes than summer ranges of montane-migrant tactics, but wolf predation risk traded-off with heightened risk from grizzly bears on summer ranges. A novel eastern migrant tactic emerged following a large forest fire that enhanced forage in an area with lower predation risk outside of the protected area. The changes in migratory behavior translated to population abundance, where abundance of the montane-migratory tactics declined over time. The presence of diverse migratory life histories maintained a higher total population abundance than would have been the case with one migratory tactic in the population. Our study demonstrates the complex ways in which migratory populations change over time through behavioral plasticity and associated demographic consequences because of individuals balancing predation risk and forage trade-offs.</p>
Large herbivore biomass in protected areas
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Livestock activity shifts large herbivore temporal distributions to their crepuscular edges
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Predation risk drives long-term shifts in migratory behavior and demography in a large herbivore population
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Functional traits—not nativeness—shape the effects of large mammalian herbivores on plant communities
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Data from: Dynamic balancing of risks and rewards in a large herbivore: Further extending predator-prey concepts to road ecology
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Body size modulates the extent of seasonal diet switching by large mammalian herbivores in Yellowstone National Park
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Multiple dimensions of dietary diversity in large mammalian herbivores
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Large differences in herbivore performance emerge from simple herbivore behaviors and fine-scale spatial heterogeneity in phytochemistry
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Data from: Climatic variation modulates the indirect effects of large herbivores on small-mammal habitat use
Large mammalian herbivores (LMH) strongly shape the composition and architecture of plant communities. A growing literature shows that negative direct effects of LMH on vegetation frequently propagate to suppress the abundance of smaller consumers. Indirect effects of LMH on the behaviour of these consumers, however, have received comparatively little attention despite their potential ecological significance. We sought to understand (i) how LMH indirectly shape small-mammal habitat use by altering the density and distribution of understorey plants; (ii) how these effects vary with climatic context (here, seasonality in rainfall); and (iii) the extent to which behavioural responses of small mammals are contingent upon small-mammal density. We tested the effects of a diverse LMH community on small-mammal habitat use using 4 years of spatially explicit small-mammal trapping and vegetation data from the UHURU Experiment, a replicated set of LMH exclosures in semi-arid Kenyan savanna. Small-mammal habitat use was positively associated with tree density and negatively associated with bare (unvegetated) patches in all plots and seasons. In the presence of LMH, and especially during the dry season, small mammals consistently selected tree cover and avoided bare patches. In contrast, when LMH were excluded, small mammals were weakly associated with tree cover and did not avoid bare patches as strongly. These behavioural responses of small mammals were largely unaffected by changes in small-mammal density associated with LMH exclusion. Our results show that LMH indirectly affect small-mammal behaviour, and that these effects are influenced by climate and can arise via density-independent mechanisms. This raises the possibility that anthropogenic LMH declines might interact with changing patterns of rainfall to alter small-mammal distribution and behaviour, independent of numerical responses by small mammals to these perturbations. For example, increased rainfall in East Africa (as predicted in many recent climate-model simulations) may relax constraints on small-mammal distribution where LMH are rare or absent, whereas increased aridity and/or drought frequency may tighten them.
Data from: Large scale variation in birth timing and synchrony of a large herbivore along the latitudinal and altitudinal gradients
<p>1. Hopkins' Bioclimatic Law predicts geographic patterns in phenological timing by establishing a correspondence between latitudinal and altitudinal gradients. First proposed for key phenological events of plants, such as leaf sprouting or flowering dates, this law has rarely been used to assess the geographical equivalence of key life history traits of mammals.</p> <p>2. We hypothesize that (H1) parturition dates of European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) are delayed and more synchronized at higher latitudes and altitudes, (H2) parturition timing varies along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients in a way that matches the Hopkins' Bioclimatic Law, and (H3) females adjust parturition timing to match the period of high energy demand with peak resource availability.</p> <p>3. We used parturition dates of 7,444 European roe deer from Switzerland to assess altitudinal variation in birth timing and synchrony from 288 to 2,366 m a.s.l. We then performed a literature survey to compare altitudinal results with those from different populations along the species' latitudinal range of distribution. Finally, we performed spatial analysis combining our highly resolved altitudinal data on parturition dates with plant phenology data.</p> <p>4. As expected, parturition dates were delayed with increasing latitude and altitude. This delay matched the Bioclimatic Law, as the effect of 1º increase in latitude was similar to 120 m increase in altitude. However, while parturitions were more synchronized with increasing altitude, we did not detect any trend along the latitudinal gradient. Finally, plant phenology explained altitudinal variation in parturition timing better than a linear effect of altitude.</p> <p>5. Our findings clearly demonstrate the ability of a large herbivore to match parturition timing with phenological conditions across the altitudinal gradient, even at the smallest spatial scales. </p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
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