Wolf habitat selection when sympatric or allopatric with brown bears in Scandinavia

Ordiz, A, Uzal, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6478-1895, Milleret, C, Sanz-Pérez, A, Zimmermann, B, Wikenros, C, Wabakken, P, Kindberg, J, Swenson, JE and Sand, H, 2020. Wolf habitat selection when sympatric or allopatric with brown bears in Scandinavia. Scientific Reports, 10 (1): 9941.

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Abstract

Habitat selection of animals depends on factors such as food availability, landscape features, and intra- and interspecific interactions. Individuals can show several behavioral responses to reduce competition for habitat, yet the mechanisms that drive them are poorly understood. This is particularly true for large carnivores, whose fine-scale monitoring is logistically complex and expensive. In Scandinavia, the home-range establishment and kill rates of gray wolves (Canis lupus) are affected by the coexistence with brown bears (Ursus arctos). Here, we applied resource selection functions and a multivariate approach to compare wolf habitat selection within home ranges of wolves that were either sympatric or allopatric with bears. Wolves selected for lower altitudes in winter, particularly in the area where bears and wolves are sympatric, where altitude is generally higher than where they are allopatric. Wolves may follow the winter migration of their staple prey, moose (Alces alces), to lower altitudes. Otherwise, we did not find any effect of bear presence on wolf habitat selection, in contrast with our previous studies. Our new results indicate that the manifestation of a specific driver of habitat selection, namely interspecific competition, can vary at different spatial-temporal scales. This is important to understand the structure of ecological communities and the varying mechanisms underlying interspecific interactions.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Scientific Reports
Creators:	Ordiz, A., Uzal, A., Milleret, C., Sanz-Pérez, A., Zimmermann, B., Wikenros, C., Wabakken, P., Kindberg, J., Swenson, J.E. and Sand, H.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	2020
Volume:	10
Number:	1
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1038/s41598-020-66626-1 DOI 1334940 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	16 Jul 2020 14:37
Last Modified:	31 May 2021 15:19
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40235

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