Determinants of home range size and spatial overlap of Gracilinanus agilis (Mammalia: Didelphidae) in central-western Brazil

Abstract

The use of space in mammals may vary according to sexual dimorphism, mating system and territorial behavior in order to ensure optimization of the reproductive success of each sex and the interactions with other species. In the present study, the determinants of home range (HR) size of males and females of Gracilinanus agilis (Burmeister 1854) were evaluated in a savanna remnant in central-western Brazil. We used live traps and capture-mark-recapture to estimate HR size. Using the method of minimum convex polygon, we estimated the HR of 24 individuals. The species showed sexual dimorphism, with males showing larger body size. The HR estimated was 0.38±0.41 ha and the highest estimated HR was for a male, with 2.08 ha. Females’ HR sizes varied according to body mass, food availability and number of captures. The more important predictor for males was the number of females found within their HRs. The overlapping areas between pairs of males were larger than those between pairs of females, suggesting that females have territorial behavior as they had mostly exclusive HRs. Considering that food availability was an important predictor for female HR size, we hypothesize that the territorial behavior in females is related to food resource.

Space use and social interactions of Central African slender‐snouted crocodiles Mecistops leptorhynchus (Bennett, 1835) in Loango National Park, Gabon

“…Seasonal changes in home range have been observed in many species (e.g. Putman et al, 2013;Shibuya et al, 2018), and sample size effects are well known to bias inference on general patterns of species behaviour (Börger et al, 2006). These issues may limit our ability to compare M. leptorhynchus with Tomistoma, likely the most ecologically similar species studied to date.…”

Home range of pampas deer in a human–dominated agro–ecosystem

“…The Animal Movement Analyst Extension 2.0 (Hooge and Eichenlaub, 2000) was used to estimate home range following the minimum convex polygon (Mohr, 1947) and Kernel density with 95 % of locations (Worton, 1989). We used Student's t-tests (Zar, 1999) to evaluate any significant differences between sexes and seasons regarding home-range size (Atwood et al, 2004;Shibuya et al, 2018).…”

Disparate home range dynamics reflect nutritional inadequacies on summer range for a large herbivore

“…In accordance with optimal foraging theory, animals should allocate time and resources to moving to a new patch when resources have been depleted in their current patch (Charnov, 1976); therefore, animals living in a high‐quality habitat should have smaller home ranges than those living in a low‐quality habitat (Broughton & Dickman, 1991; McLoughlin et al, 1999; Taitt & Krebs, 1981; Tufto et al, 1996; Wolff, 1984). Intraspecific variation in home range size is related to a myriad of factors including quality and availability of food, availability of water, fragmentation of landscape, weather, and density of conspecifics (Aronsson et al, 2016; McLoughlin et al, 2000; Rivrud et al, 2010; Shibuya et al, 2018; Singleton & Van Schaik, 2001), as well as life‐history traits such as sex, age, and reproductive status (Grigione et al, 2002; Henry et al, 2005; Recio & Seddon, 2013). Mammals with newly born young may have larger home ranges because of increased energy demands that must be met through increased intake of food (Saïd et al, 2005) or may have smaller home ranges because of increased predation risk, limited mobility of young, or specific habitat requirements associated with offspring (Bleich et al, 1997; Dahle & Swenson, 2003; Long et al, 2009; van Beest et al, 2011; Viana et al, 2018).…”