Department of Environmental Science, Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, The Netherlands.
J Anim Ecol. 2024 Apr;93(4):488-500. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.14073. Epub 2024 Mar 8.
As animal home range size (HRS) provides valuable information for species conservation, it is important to understand the driving factors of HRS variation. It is widely known that differences in species traits (e.g. body mass) are major contributors to variation in mammal HRS. However, most studies examining how environmental variation explains mammal HRS variation have been limited to a few species, or only included a single (mean) HRS estimate for the majority of species, neglecting intraspecific HRS variation. Additionally, most studies examining environmental drivers of HRS variation included only terrestrial species, neglecting marine species. Using a novel dataset of 2800 HRS estimates from 586 terrestrial and 27 marine mammal species, we quantified the relationships between HRS and environmental variables, accounting for species traits. Our results indicate that terrestrial mammal HRS was on average 5.3 times larger in areas with low human disturbance (human footprint index [HFI] = 0), compared to areas with maximum human disturbance (HFI = 50). Similarly, HRS was on average 5.4 times larger in areas with low annual mean productivity (NDVI = 0), compared to areas with high productivity (NDVI = 1). In addition, HRS increased by a factor of 1.9 on average from low to high seasonality in productivity (standard deviation (SD) of monthly NDVI from 0 to 0.36). Of these environmental variables, human disturbance and annual mean productivity explained a larger proportion of HRS variance than seasonality in productivity. Marine mammal HRS decreased, on average, by a factor of 3.7 per 10°C decline in annual mean sea surface temperature (SST), and increased by a factor of 1.5 per 1°C increase in SST seasonality (SD of monthly values). Annual mean SST explained more variance in HRS than SST seasonality. Due to the small sample size, caution should be taken when interpreting the marine mammal results. Our results indicate that environmental variation is relevant for HRS and that future environmental changes might alter the HRS of individuals, with potential consequences for ecosystem functioning and the effectiveness of conservation actions.
由于动物的家域范围大小（HRS）为物种保护提供了有价值的信息，因此了解 HRS 变化的驱动因素非常重要。众所周知，物种特征（例如体重）的差异是哺乳动物 HRS 变化的主要原因。然而，大多数研究检查环境变化如何解释哺乳动物 HRS 变化的研究仅限于少数几种物种，或者仅包括大多数物种的单个（平均）HRS 估计值，忽略了种内 HRS 变化。此外，大多数研究检查 HRS 变化的环境驱动因素仅包括陆地物种，忽略了海洋物种。我们使用了一个新的数据集，其中包含 586 种陆地和 27 种海洋哺乳动物的 2800 个 HRS 估计值，定量地研究了 HRS 与环境变量之间的关系，同时考虑了物种特征。我们的结果表明，与人类干扰最大的地区（HFI=50）相比，人类干扰程度较低的地区（HFI=0）的陆地哺乳动物 HRS 平均大 5.3 倍。同样，与高生产力地区（NDVI=1）相比，低生产力地区（NDVI=0）的 HRS 平均大 5.4 倍。此外，从生产力的低季节性到高季节性，HRS 平均增加了 1.9 倍（每月 NDVI 的标准差（SD）从 0 到 0.36）。在这些环境变量中，人类干扰和年平均生产力比生产力的季节性对 HRS 的变化解释更大的比例。海洋哺乳动物 HRS 平均下降了 3.7 倍，与每年平均海表温度（SST）每降低 10°C 相关，而 SST 季节性（每月值的 SD）每增加 1°C，HRS 则增加了 1.5 倍。年平均 SST 对 HRS 的解释比 SST 季节性更有意义。由于样本量较小，在解释海洋哺乳动物的结果时应谨慎。我们的研究结果表明，环境变化与 HRS 有关，未来的环境变化可能会改变个体的 HRS，这可能会对生态系统功能和保护行动的有效性产生影响。
