Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2018 Oct 24;13(10):e0206354. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206354. eCollection 2018.
An animal's home-range can be expected to encompass the resources it requires for surviving or reproducing. Thus, animals inhabiting a heterogeneous landscape, where resource patches vary in size, shape and distribution, will naturally have home-ranges of varied sizes, so that each home-range encompasses a minimum required amount of a resource. Home-range size can be estimated from telemetry data, and often key resources, or proxies for them such as the areas of important habitat types, can be mapped. We propose a new method, Resource-Area-Dependence Analysis (RADA), which uses a sample of tracked animals and a categorical map to i) infer in which map categories important resources are accessible, ii) within which home range cores they are found, and iii) estimate the mean minimum areas of these map categories required for such resource provision. We provide three examples of applying RADA to datasets of radio-tracked animals from southern England: 15 red squirrels Sciurus vulgaris, 17 gray squirrels S. carolinensis and 114 common buzzards Buteo buteo. The analyses showed that each red squirrel required a mean (95% CL) of 0.48 ha (0.24--0.97) of pine wood within the outermost home-range, each gray squirrel needed 0.34 ha (0.11-1.12) ha of mature deciduous woodland and 0.035-0.046 ha of wheat, also within the outermost home-range, while each buzzard required 0.54 ha (0.35-0.82) of rough ground close to the home-range center and 14 ha (11-17) of meadow within an intermediate core, with 52% of them also relying on 0.41 ha (0.29-0.59) of suburban land near the home-range center. RADA thus provides a useful tool to infer key animal resource requirements during studies of animal movement and habitat use.
动物的活动范围预计将包含其生存或繁殖所需的资源。因此，栖息在资源斑块大小、形状和分布存在差异的异质景观中的动物，其活动范围自然大小各异，以确保每个活动范围包含最少所需的资源量。可以通过遥测数据来估计活动范围的大小，并且通常可以对关键资源或它们的代理（例如重要栖息地类型的面积）进行映射。我们提出了一种新方法，即资源面积依赖分析（Resource-Area-Dependence Analysis，RADA），该方法使用跟踪动物的样本和分类图来：i）推断重要资源可在哪些地图类别中获取；ii）在哪些活动范围核心中找到它们；iii）估计这些地图类别的平均最小面积，以提供这些资源。我们提供了 RADA 应用于来自英格兰南部的无线电跟踪动物数据集的三个示例：15 只红松鼠 Sciurus vulgaris、17 只灰松鼠 S. carolinensis 和 114 只普通鹰 Buteo buteo。分析表明，每只红松鼠在最外层活动范围的内部需要平均（95%置信区间）0.48 公顷（0.24-0.97）的松林，每只灰松鼠需要 0.34 公顷（0.11-1.12）公顷的成熟落叶林和 0.035-0.046 公顷的小麦，也在最外层活动范围的内部，而每只鹰需要 0.54 公顷（0.35-0.82）公顷的靠近活动范围中心的粗糙地面和 14 公顷（11-17）公顷的活动范围中心内部的草地，其中 52%的鹰还依赖于活动范围中心附近的 0.41 公顷（0.29-0.59）公顷的郊区土地。因此，RADA 为推断动物在运动和栖息地利用研究中的关键资源需求提供了一种有用的工具。
