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Habitat use under predation risk: hunting, roads and human dwellings influence the spatial behaviour of roe deer

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Abstract

Wildlife populations are subjected to increasing pressure linked to human activities, which introduce multiple stressors. Recently, in addition to direct effects, it has been shown that indirect (non-lethal) effects of predation risk are predominant in many populations. Predation risk is often structured in space and time, generating a heterogeneous “landscape of fear” within which animals can minimize risks by modifying their habitat use. Furthermore, for ungulates, resource quality seems to be positively correlated with human-related sources of risk. We studied the trade-off between access to resources of high-quality and risk-taking by contrasting habitat use of roe deer during daytime with that during nighttime for 94 roe deer in a hunted population. Our first hypothesis was that roe deer should avoid human disturbance by modifying their habitat use during daytime compared to nighttime. Our results supported this, as roe deer mainly used open fields during nighttime, but used more forested habitats during daytime, when human disturbance is higher. Moreover, we found that diel patterns in habitat use were influenced by hunting disturbance. Indeed, the roe deer decreased their use of high-crops during daytime, an important source of cover and food, during the hunting season. The proximity of roads and dwellings also affected habitat use, since roe deer used open fields during daytime to a greater extent when the distance to these sources of disturbance was higher. Hence, our results suggest that roe deer resolve the trade-off between the acquisition of high-quality resources and risk avoidance by modifying their habitat use between day and night.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the local hunting associations, the Fédération Départementale des Chasseurs de la Haute-Garonne for allowing us to work in the Comminges, as well as all co-workers and volunteers for help collecting data. We also thank two anonymous referees for giving helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRA, UR35 Comportement et Ecologie de la Faune Sauvage, CS 52627, 31326, Castanet-Tolosan, France

    Nadège Bonnot, Nicolas Morellet, Hélène Verheyden, Bruno Cargnelutti, Bruno Lourtet & A. J. Mark Hewison

  2. ONCFS, CNERA Cervidés-Sanglier, 55000, Bar-le-Duc, France

    François Klein

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  1. Nadège Bonnot
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  2. Nicolas Morellet
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  3. Hélène Verheyden
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  7. A. J. Mark Hewison
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Correspondence to Nadège Bonnot.

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Communicated by C. Gortázar

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Fig. S1

Estimated daytime versus nighttime habitat use probabilities of roe deer as generated by the best model for the six sex-age modalities (adult females, adult males, sub-adult females, sub-adult males, yearling females and yearling males) and for the five habitat types (woodland, hedgerow, high-crop, crop and meadow). For example, fixes located in woodland had a probability superior than 80 % of being sampled during daytime (versus 20 % of fixes located in woodland sampled during nighttime) for all sex-age categories. The dashed line represents a level of use that is identical between daytime and nighttime (p = 0.5, null hypothesis), and bars represent the standard errors (PDF 6 kb)

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Bonnot, N., Morellet, N., Verheyden, H. et al. Habitat use under predation risk: hunting, roads and human dwellings influence the spatial behaviour of roe deer. Eur J Wildl Res 59, 185–193 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-012-0665-8

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