Majaliwa M M, Hughey L F, Stabach J A, Songer M, Whyle K, Alhashmi A E A, Al Remeithi M, Pusey R, Chaibo H A, Ngari Walsoumon A, Hassan Hatcha M, Wacher T, Ngaba C, Newby J, Leimgruber P, Mertes K
Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, USA.
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK.
Mov Ecol. 2022 Nov 10;10(1):47. doi: 10.1186/s40462-022-00348-z.
Reintroduced animals-especially those raised in captivity-are faced with the unique challenge of navigating a wholly unfamiliar environment, and often make erratic or extensive movements after release. Naïveté to the reintroduction landscape can be costly, e.g., through increased energy expenditure, greater exposure to predation, and reduced opportunities to forage. Integration with an extant population may provide opportunities for social information transfer. However, in the absence of interactions with residents, it is unclear how individual and social learning may affect an animal's ability to track resources in an unfamiliar landscape. We use integrated step selection functions (iSSFs) to address these knowledge gaps, by evaluating the extent to which environmental factors, individual experience (time since release), and social information-sharing (group size) influence movement decisions by scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah) reintroduced into their native range for the first time in ca. 30 years. We found that both experience and social factors influenced the habitat selection and movement behavior of reintroduced oryx. Of four candidate iSSFs, the model that included environmental, experience, and group size variables performed best in both dry and wet periods. Statistically significant interaction terms between environmental variables and experience were generally larger than similar terms for group size, indicating that experience may affect habitat selection by reintroduced oryx more strongly than social factors. These findings may inform the management of recovering wildlife populations, update widely-held expectations about how released ungulates acclimate to novel landscapes, and demonstrate the utility of long-term monitoring of reintroduced populations.
重新引入的动物——尤其是那些圈养长大的动物——面临着在一个完全陌生的环境中导航的独特挑战，并且在放归后往往会做出不稳定或大范围的移动。对重新引入地区的不了解可能会付出高昂代价，例如通过增加能量消耗、更大程度地暴露于捕食风险以及减少觅食机会。与现存种群融合可能会提供社会信息传递的机会。然而，在缺乏与当地动物互动的情况下，尚不清楚个体学习和社会学习如何影响动物在陌生环境中追踪资源的能力。我们使用综合步长选择函数（iSSFs）来填补这些知识空白，通过评估环境因素、个体经验（放归后的时间）和社会信息共享（群体规模）在多大程度上影响首次在大约30年后被重新引入其原生栖息地的弯角剑羚（Oryx dammah）的移动决策。我们发现经验和社会因素都影响了重新引入的剑羚的栖息地选择和移动行为。在四个候选iSSF模型中，包含环境、经验和群体规模变量的模型在旱季和雨季的表现都最佳。环境变量和经验之间具有统计学意义的交互项通常比群体规模的类似项更大，这表明经验对重新引入的剑羚栖息地选择的影响可能比社会因素更强。这些发现可能为恢复野生动物种群的管理提供参考，更新人们对放归有蹄类动物如何适应新环境的普遍预期，并证明对重新引入种群进行长期监测的实用性。
