PARENT SESSION
Oral Session 142: Mammalian Ecology.
Presiding: S Vignieri and D Berteaux
Friday, August 6, 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM, Meeting Room F 151.
The determinants of coyote home range patterns in Yellowstone National Park: An analysis using a mechanistic home range model.
Moorcroft, Paul*,1, Lewis, Mark*,2, Crabtree, Bob*,2, 1 Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States2 University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
ABSTRACT- Since its introduction in the 1950s, radio telemetry has become a mainstream technique in wildlife studies, documenting a diverse array of patterns of space-use within many mammalian groups including ungulates, rodents, primates and carnivores. However, until recently, the models used to analyze telemetry data have had no mechanistic basis underlying their descriptions of space-use, and as a result, the analysis of animal home ranges has been an entirely descriptive endeavor. In this paper, we characterize coyote (Canis latrans) home range patterns in Yellowstone National Park, using partial differential equations for expected space use that are derived from an underlying mechanistic description of individual movement behavior. The results provide direct empirical support for a mechanistic home range model in which the observed patterns of space-use are arising from individuals responding to the spatial distribution of resources and the presence of neighboring groups. We then show how the model fits can be used to obtain predictions for individual movement and scent-marking behavior and to predict changes in home range patterns. More generally, our findings illustrate how mechanistic models permit the development of a predictive theory for the relationship between movement behavior and animal spatial distribution.
Key words: coyote, range, determinants, home