A case for considering individual variation in diel activity patterns

Hertel, Anne G.; Swenson, Jon E.; Bischof, Richard

doi:10.1093/beheco/arx122

Cited by 83 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…An age < 5 years was considered young (n = 11), middle-aged between 5 and 15 years (n = 3) and old when > 15 years (n = 9). Bears travelled long distances when the movement distance exceeded 50 m in an hour, as previously validated with 25 m in half an hour [2].…”

Section: Table 2 Selection Of Lme Models Of Factors Influencing the Rsupporting

confidence: 62%

“…Wildlife activity patterns may be an adaptation to daily and seasonal variations in environmental factors [1] and are relevant for optimising management. Activity patterns of large carnivores can vary seasonally due to changes in their environment, including human activities such as hunting [1,2]. In addition, movement and physiology are linked to an individual's activity levels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Movement and heart rate in the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos)

Blanchet¹,

Fuchs²,

Støen³

et al. 2019

Anim Biotelemetry

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Background: Understanding animal movement facilitates better management and conservation. The link between movement and physiology holds clues to the basic drivers of animal behaviours. In bears, heart rate increases with the metabolic rate during the active phase. Their movement and heart rate change at seasonal and daily scales, and can also depend on environmental factors. Their behaviour is, therefore, flexible in activity patterns with high individual variations. The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between heart rate and distance travelled, and test whether this relationship was influenced by environmental (e.g., time of year and time of day) and biological (e.g., reproductive status, sex, body mass and age of the bears) factors. We analysed data of distance travelled and heart rate of 15 GPS-collared brown bears, both males and females, equipped with cardiac loggers in the south of Sweden in 2014-2017. Results: Heart rate increased with distances travelled exceeding 50 m in an hour, but this correlation depended on the day-of-year with higher heart rate in August than in May. Bears accompanied by cubs had lower heart rate than solitary bears especially in May. When movement was minimum (< 50 m in an hour), heart rate was not related to distance travelled and was very variable, regardless of the months. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that heart rate increases with long distances travelled, but varies with day-of-year and reproductive status, depending on the metabolic rate. Studying the change in heart rate in bears can help to evaluate their seasonal rhythms and how different factors affect them. This study illustrates the usefulness of combined bio-logging proxies, i.e., movement and heart rates in our case, in animal ecology.

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Section: Table 2 Selection Of Lme Models Of Factors Influencing the Rsupporting

confidence: 62%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Movement and heart rate in the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos)

Blanchet¹,

Fuchs²,

Støen³

et al. 2019

Anim Biotelemetry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Although not currently fully included into the concept of animal personalities (Gosling, 2001;Sih et al, 2004;Stamps, 2007;Wolf and Weissing, 2012), an animal's activity cycle and pattern is of essential ecological and evolutionary importance (Hertel et al, 2017) as it influences, e.g., its temporal selection/avoidance of open vs. protective habitats (Boon et al, 2008;Lone et al, 2015), movement rates (Ciuti et al, 2012), and dispersal (Cooper et al, 2017). Individual variation of activity cycles and patterns is also important at the population level because the degree of variation in temporal strategies renders populations to be more or less resilient to changing conditions (Wolf and Weissing, 2012;Dingemanse and Wolf, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Daily and Seasonal Activity Patterns in Fox Squirrels (Sciurus niger) Quantified by Temperature-Sensitive Data Loggers

Wassmer

Refinetti

2019

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…S2) in both seasons and both when solitary and when accompanied by offspring. This emphasizes that, within demographic groups, environmental factors like home range habitat composition, human presence, road density, bear population density, and consistent individual variation (i.e., personality; Leclerc et al 2016, Hertel et al 2017) influence variations in behavior, which we did not explicitly explore in this study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fluctuating mast production does not drive Scandinavian brown bear behavior

et al. 2018

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Bears often rely on soft or hard mast during fall hyperphagia when they increase body mass in preparation for winter hibernation. Studies of North American and Japanese bear populations suggest they respond to years of mast crop failure by increasing movement rates and roaming farther, with an increase in human–wildlife conflicts. In southcentral Sweden, brown bears (Ursus arctos) primarily feed on bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and lingonberry (V. vitis‐idaea) during hyperphagia. We hypothesized that berry production affects movement, activity, and space use behaviors of bears in Sweden, which have the potential to increase human–bear encounters. We tested whether seasonal activity patterns, human settlement visits, and clearcut selection ratios were affected by bilberry and lingonberry productivity between 2007 and 2017 with linear and generalized linear mixed effect models. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find that bears moved more or maintained larger home ranges in years of low berry production. Bears were slightly more active in years of higher bilberry production, but variation in behavior was primarily explained by demographic group and individual differences. Bears rarely visited human settlements and the number of visits did not increase in relation to shortage of natural foods. Likewise, population‐level selection for clearcuts was unrelated to berry production but reflected a differential food search behavior in the 2 peak berry seasons, with higher clearcut selection ratios during the lingonberry season. Only 12 bears regularly used agricultural fields, which were too few to relate field visits to berry production, but all bears visited fields more often during the later lingonberry season. We suggest that weaker fluctuations in berry production, a continuous spatial distribution of berries, and an apparent absence of forage‐limiting exploitative intra‐ or interspecific competition contribute to brown bears in Scandinavia being less food limited than bears in North America or Japan, which might help to explain the low number of human–bear conflicts in Sweden. Factors potentially influencing encounters and actual or perceived conflict between bears and humans differ among populations because of a different distribution of natural and non‐natural food resources or differences in the magnitude of variation in food abundance among years. These data are important to consider when communicating causes of human‐wildlife conflicts to the public. © 2018 The Wildlife Society.

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A case for considering individual variation in diel activity patterns

Cited by 83 publications

References 64 publications

Movement and heart rate in the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos)

Movement and heart rate in the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos)

Individual Daily and Seasonal Activity Patterns in Fox Squirrels (Sciurus niger) Quantified by Temperature-Sensitive Data Loggers

Fluctuating mast production does not drive Scandinavian brown bear behavior

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