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Behavioural strategies towards human disturbances explain individual performance in woodland caribou

  • Conservation ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Behavioural strategies may have important fitness, ecological and evolutionary consequences. In woodland caribou, human disturbances are associated with higher predation risk. Between 2004 and 2011, we investigated if habitat selection strategies of female caribou towards disturbances influenced their calf’s survival in managed boreal forest with varying intensities of human disturbances. Calf survival was 53 % and 43 % after 30 and 90 days following birth, respectively, and 52 % of calves that died were killed by black bear. The probability that a female lose its calf to predation was not influenced by habitat composition of her annual home range, but decreased with an increase in proportion of open lichen woodland within her calving home range. At the local scale, females that did not lose their calf displayed stronger avoidance of high road density areas than females that lost their calf to predation. Further, females that lost their calf to predation and that had a low proportion of ≤5-year-old cutovers within their calving home range were mostly observed in areas where these young cutovers were locally absent. Also, females that lost their calf to predation and that had a high proportion of ≤5-year-old cutovers within their calving home range were mostly observed in areas with a high local density of ≤5-year-old cutovers. Our study demonstrates that we have to account for human-induced disturbances at both local and regional scales in order to further enhance effective caribou management plans. We demonstrate that disturbances not only impact spatial distribution of individuals, but also their reproductive success.

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Acknowledgments

We thank B. Baillargeon, C. Bourgeois, L. Breton, L. Coulombe, R. Courtois, Cl. Dussault, J.-G. Frenette, S. Gravel, D. Grenier, R. Lavoie, D. Lacasse, M. Poulin and S. St-Onge for caribou captures. We also thank J.-P. Ouellet for his scientific contribution, A. Caron and M. Mazerolle for statistical advices, and J. Bêty, C. Johnson, A. Skarin, and P. and M. Fast for useful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This project was funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Nature et technologies, the Fonds de recherche forestière du Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery Grant to M.-H. St-Laurent), the Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, the Conseil de l’Industrie Forestière du Québec, the Fédération Canadienne de la Faune, the Fondation de la Faune du Québec, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, Produits Forestier Résolu Inc., and the Université du Québec à Rimouski. We also thank the Essipit First Nation for providing access to their caribou telemetry data, via the Aboriginal Funds for Species at Risk (Environment Canada).

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  1. Département de Biologie, Chimie et Géographie, Centre for Northern Studies and Centre for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Rimouski, 300 Allée des Ursulines, Rimouski, QC, G5L 3A1, Canada

    Martin Leclerc & Martin-Hugues St-Laurent

  2. Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, Direction de la faune terrestre et de l’avifaune, 880 chemin Sainte-Foy, Québec, QC, G1S 4X4, Canada

    Christian Dussault

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  1. Martin Leclerc
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Communicated by Göran C. Ericsson.

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Leclerc, M., Dussault, C. & St-Laurent, MH. Behavioural strategies towards human disturbances explain individual performance in woodland caribou. Oecologia 176, 297–306 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-3012-9

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