Daily activity patterns of large and medium-sized mammals based on camera traps data in the Central Forest Nature Reserve, Valdai Upland, Russia

Abstract

Here are presented the results of the analysis of daily activity patterns obtained from the data of camera traps for five large mammals (elk Alces alces, wild boar Sus scrofa, brown bear Ursus arctos, grey wolf Canis lupus, Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx) and three medium ones (European badger Meles meles, raccoon dog Nyctereutes procyonoides, mountain hare Lepus timidus) for the territory of the Central Forest Nature Reserve, Valdai Upland, Russia. Data were collected in the period 2010-2017 and the trap effort was 30 158 camera days from 21 locations. Most of the mammals surveyed showed activity at night and twilight hours (71% of the pictures). The hare was most active among all and dominant at night. In many respects it is similar to the activity of a raccoon dog, which type can be defined as nocturnal too. Unlike a hare, a raccoon dog has a weak peak in the daytime and less activity in the night. Badgers movements are confined to the twilight and nighttime. The share of nocturnal activity of large ungulates such as elk and wild boar was approximately the same and amounted to about 45% of all registrations. The wild boar is slightly more active during the day and in the evening and is not active at all in the morning. The elk is active in the morning, and in the daytime and to a lesser extent in the evening. The lynx and the bear have similar cathemeral activity patterns: almost half of all their meetings occurred at daylight hours and only slightly -less than 40% -at night. The brown bear had the maximum number of registrations in the daytime among all the studied species. Despite the fact that the main object of lynx feeding in the reserve is the hare, there was no high degree of overlap between them ( = 0.75). In the group of large carnivores, the wolf was noticeably distinguished, more than half of its registrations were at night, and a third -on daytime. Daily activities of the wolf and its main prey elk showed a large overlap ( = 0.89). The seasonal variations of daily activity of all species were also shown. According to the results of factor analysis, each of the studied species was divided into one of three separate groups. The first group included species with a tendency to nocturnal activity (wolf, elk, hare, badger, and raccoon dog), the second group -cathemeral animals (bear and lynx). In the third group was only the wild boar, whose activity was associated with the evening hours. This is the first long-term continuous camera trap survey in Russia and it provides detailed daily activity patterns for multiple large and medium-sized sympatric mammals.

The diel activity pattern of mountain hare (Lepus timidus) on managed heather moorland in Scotland

“…Both use a definition of twilight as straddling sunset and sunrise but, taking that into account, their seasonal data show a bimodal crepuscular pattern with increased daylight activity in summer, a pattern that resembles our own results. However, the Ogurtsov et al (2018) activity profiles for winter and spring followed a nocturnal activity pattern with a single peak in the middle of the night. This pattern differs from our own results and may be a consequence of the different habitats under study.…”

Daily activity patterns and relative abundance of medium and large mammals in a communal natural protected area on the central coast of Oaxaca, Mexico

“…For example, daily activity is determined both by external environmental factor (light, temperature, weather, precipitation, etc.) and the endogenous factors (physiological state) of the animals themselves (Ogurtsov et al, 2018). The types of activities are determined by a combination of conditions that generally ensure a relatively safe existence for the species (safety of obtaining food, survival of young animals, etc.)…”

“…The types of activities are determined by a combination of conditions that generally ensure a relatively safe existence for the species (safety of obtaining food, survival of young animals, etc.) (Ogurtsov et al, 2018).…”

Innovations in movement and behavioural ecology from camera traps: Day range as model parameter

“…Currently, camera traps (CT) are used for a wide range of applications: species inventory (Tobler et al., 2008), habitat use (Tobler et al., 2009), abundance estimation (Iijima, 2020), occupancy (Neilson et al., 2018) or species interaction (Niedballa et al., 2019), among others. Movement parameters derived from CT are mainly focused on activity, that is, the proportion of the day that the animals spend active (Rowcliffe et al., 2014), and its variation to spatial, temporal or ecological variables (Ogurtsov et al., 2018; Vazquez et al., 2019). However, other authors have focused on parameterizing tortuosity (Rowcliffe et al., 2012) and in evaluating other variables in which movement and behavioural ecology play a key role, for instance, interspecific epidemiological interactions and predator–prey relationships (Niedballa et al., 2019; Smith et al., 2020).…”