Hansen J E, Hertel A G, Frank S C, Kindberg J, Zedrosser A
Faculty of Technology, Natural Sciences and Maritime Sciences, Department of Natural Sciences and Environmental Health, University of South-Eastern Norway, Bø i Telemark, Norway.
Senkenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Frankfurt, Germany.
Behav Ecol. 2021 Oct 18;33(1):137-146. doi: 10.1093/beheco/arab118. eCollection 2022 Jan-Feb.
How and where a female selects an area to settle and breed is of central importance in dispersal and population ecology as it governs range expansion and gene flow. Social structure and organization have been shown to influence settlement decisions, but its importance in the settlement of large, solitary mammals is largely unknown. We investigate how the identity of overlapping conspecifics on the landscape, acquired during the maternal care period, influences the selection of settlement home ranges in a non-territorial, solitary mammal using location data of 56 female brown bears (). We used a resource selection function to determine whether females' settlement behavior was influenced by the presence of their mother, related females, familiar females, and female population density. Hunting may remove mothers and result in socio-spatial changes before settlement. We compared overlap between settling females and their mother's concurrent or most recent home ranges to examine the settling female's response to the absence or presence of her mother on the landscape. We found that females selected settlement home ranges that overlapped their mother's home range, familiar females, that is, those they had previously overlapped with, and areas with higher density than their natal ranges. However, they did not select areas overlapping related females. We also found that when mothers were removed from the landscape, female offspring selected settlement home ranges with greater overlap of their mother's range, compared with mothers who were alive. Our results suggest that females are acquiring and using information about their social environment when making settlement decisions.
雌性如何以及在何处选择定居和繁殖区域，在扩散和种群生态学中至关重要，因为它决定了分布范围的扩大和基因流动。社会结构和组织已被证明会影响定居决策，但其在大型独居哺乳动物定居中的重要性在很大程度上尚不清楚。我们利用56只雌性棕熊的位置数据，研究在母育期获得的景观中重叠同种个体的身份，如何影响一种非领地性独居哺乳动物定居家园范围的选择。我们使用资源选择函数来确定雌性的定居行为是否受到其母亲、相关雌性、熟悉的雌性以及雌性种群密度的影响。狩猎可能会使母亲消失，并在定居前导致社会空间变化。我们比较了定居雌性与其母亲同时期或最近的家园范围之间的重叠情况，以研究定居雌性对其母亲在景观中缺席或存在的反应。我们发现，雌性选择的定居家园范围与它们母亲的家园范围、熟悉的雌性（即它们之前有过重叠的雌性）以及比其出生范围密度更高的区域重叠。然而，它们没有选择与相关雌性重叠的区域。我们还发现，当母亲从景观中消失时，与母亲健在的情况相比，雌性后代选择的定居家园范围与母亲范围的重叠度更高。我们的结果表明，雌性在做出定居决策时正在获取并利用有关其社会环境的信息。
