Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (ONCFS), Direction des Études et de la Recherche, F-34990 Juvignac, France.
BMC Ecol. 2014 Feb 26;14:6. doi: 10.1186/1472-6785-14-6.
Movements of animals have important consequences, at both the individual and population levels. Due to its important implications in the evolutionary dynamics of populations, dispersal is one of the most studied types of movement. In contrast, non-permanent extra home-range movements are often paid less attention. However, these movements may occur in response to important biological processes such as mating or predation avoidance. In addition, these forays are often preludes to permanent dispersal, because they may help individuals gain cues about their surroundings prior to settlement in a new place.In the European hare, exploration forays occur predominantly in juveniles, the time at which most hares disperse. In France, the timing of dispersal also overlaps with the hare hunting period. However, the determinants of such behaviour have not yet been studied. Herein, we investigate whether these non-permanent explorations are dispersal attempts/preludes or, in contrast, whether they are triggered by other factors such as disturbances related to hunting.
Contrary to natal dispersal, we did not find strong male-bias in the propensity to engage in explorations. Exploration forays occurred less in juveniles than in adults and later in the season than natal dispersal. This was the case both for philopatric movements and for movements occurring after dispersal and settlement. These movements were also more likely to occur during the hare hunting period and the mating season.
We suggest that explorations in hares are triggered by factors other than dispersal and that hares may respond to hunting disturbances. Overall, we emphasize the need to account for human-related predation risk as a factor driving space-use in harvested species.
动物的运动在个体和种群水平上都有重要的后果。由于其在种群进化动态中的重要意义，扩散是研究最多的运动类型之一。相比之下，非永久性的额外栖息地运动通常受到较少的关注。然而，这些运动可能是对交配或避免捕食等重要生物过程的反应。此外，这些突袭通常是永久性扩散的前奏，因为它们可以帮助个体在新地点定居之前获得有关周围环境的线索。在欧洲野兔中，探索性突袭主要发生在幼兔中，这是大多数野兔扩散的时间。在法国，扩散的时间也与野兔狩猎期重叠。然而，这种行为的决定因素尚未得到研究。在此，我们研究了这些非永久性的探索是扩散尝试/前奏，还是相反，它们是否是由与狩猎相关的干扰等其他因素引发的。
与出生地扩散相反，我们没有发现雄性在参与探索的倾向方面存在强烈的偏差。探索性突袭在幼兔中比在成年兔中发生得少，而且在季节后期比出生地扩散发生得少。无论是亲代移动还是在扩散和定居后发生的移动，情况都是如此。这些运动也更可能发生在野兔狩猎期和交配季节。
我们认为，野兔的探索是由扩散以外的因素引发的，野兔可能会对狩猎干扰做出反应。总的来说，我们强调需要将与人类相关的捕食风险作为驱动被猎物种空间利用的因素来考虑。
