Foraging ecology of bison at the landscape and plant community levels: the applicability of energy maximization principles

Fortin, Daniel; Fryxell, John M.; O’Brodovich, Lloyd; Frandsen, Dan

doi:10.1007/s00442-002-1112-4

Cited by 133 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Boyce et al, 2003;Fortin et al, 2003;Putfarken et al, 2008). In the present study, the combination of this method with observa- tions related to plant selection helped to improve knowledge on foraging behaviour in heterogeneous mountain pastures in the Swiss Alps.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Foraging behaviour and occupation pattern of beef cows on a heterogeneous pasture in the Swiss Alps

Meisser¹,

Deléglise²,

Freléchoux³

et al. 2014

Czech J. Anim. Sci.

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ABSTRACT:In the Alps, many summer pastures are under-used due to the decreasing number of livestock. Optimizing the grazing management of heterogeneous pastures implies a better understanding of foraging habits of cattle. The aim of this study was to precise the relationships between cattle behaviour and the characteristics of the vegetation. The experiment was carried out on a pasture encroached by shrubs (mainly Alnus viridis) and composed of four contrasted vegetation units at 1800 m a.s.l. Four beef cows were monitored in a paddock of 2.9 ha by Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) during three rotations, in order to analyze the spatial and temporal occupation pattern. The open grasslands and, to a lesser extent, the tall herb community were significantly more visited than expected if cattle had foraged at random. The shrubby areas were far less visited than expected at random. The monitoring also revealed differences across rotations. Vegetation surveys were also performed to determine the specific contribution and the grazing frequency of the encountered plant species. The most eaten herbaceous plants were not necessarily those known to be the most palatable, even if graminoids were more selected than other plants. Leontodon hispidus, Agrostis capillaris, Festuca rubra, and Luzula sylvatica were the most selected species, whereas Veratrum album and Trollius europaeus were completely avoided. The consumed forage was of better quality than the forage collected at random and its nutrient content showed less variability and remained more constant over the three rotations. The results highlight that the selection processes exerted by cattle are important. They occur at different levels (species, vegetation type, in time) and confirm that an integrative approach is necessary for improving the understanding of cattle foraging behaviour in heterogeneous mountain pastures.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Foraging behaviour and occupation pattern of beef cows on a heterogeneous pasture in the Swiss Alps

Meisser¹,

Deléglise²,

Freléchoux³

et al. 2014

Czech J. Anim. Sci.

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“…However, foraging distribution across a landscape most probably results from tradeoffs between dietary and non-dietary factors. Adequate levels of intake are balanced by animals with factors such as site accessibility, distance to water, thermal comfort, or reduced predation risk (Mueggler 1965, Pinchak et al 1991, Plumb and Dodd 1993, Etzenhouser et al 1998, Fortin et al 2003, Frair et al 2005, Black Rubio et al 2008. The foraging pattern can be interpreted as a complex adaptation to several environmental factors.…”

Section: Ecological Consequences Of the Observed Foraging Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging behavior of heritage versus recently introduced herbivores on desert landscapes of the American Southwest

et al. 2011

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Abstract. Since the 1800s managed grasslands and shrublands of the arid American Southwest have been grazed predominantly by cattle originally bred for temperate climates in northern Europe. A heritage breed, the criollo cattle, has survived in northern Mexico for more than 400 years under desert-like conditions of low and variable rainfall, hot temperatures in the growing season, and both spatially and temporally scarce levels of primary production. We tested the hypothesis that the heritage breed has a broader spatial foraging distribution under harsh environmental conditions, and that its distribution is driven by environmental variables which differ from those that control the distribution of the introduced European breed. Movements of individual criollo and Angus breed animals were monitored autonomously in the northern Chihuahuan desert of southern New Mexico, USA. Georeferenced foraging locations acquired at 5-minute intervals for each animal were fit to a logistic regression using environmental factors as predictors. In the spring, when forage availability was high and more uniformly distributed across the landscape, animal foraging patterns were similar for both breeds. In the fall when forage availability was low and non-uniformly distributed, the two breeds exhibited very different foraging patterns: heritage animals foraged across a much larger spatial extent whereas their domestic counterparts remained in close proximity to the permanent source of water. These differences in foraging behavior driven by environmental variables have important implications for sustainability of rangelands in spatially and temporally variable environments. Heritage breeds of animals that are generalist foragers during unfavorable conditions can reduce environmental impacts compared to more recently introduced breeds.Key words: Chihuahuan desert; criollo cattle; GPS monitoring; herbivory; landscape foraging patterns; resource selection functions. Ecosphere 2(5):art57.

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“…Within the park, the bison range is composed of approximately 85% forests, 10% meadows, and 5% lakes and rivers (see Fortin et al 2003). From 2005 to 2007, 16 bison were followed for up to 2 years each, between 15 November and 15 April (except in 2005 when radio-tracking started on 10 March).…”

Section: Application: Habitat Selection By Pairs Of Bisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditional Logistic Regression With Longitudinal Follow-up and Individual-Level Random Coefficients: A Stable and Efficient Two-Step Estimation Method

Craiu

Duchesne

Fortin

et al. 2011

Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics

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The analysis of data generated by animal habitat selection studies, by family studies of genetic diseases, or by longitudinal follow-up of households often involves fitting a mixed conditional logistic regression model to longitudinal data composed of clusters of matched case-control strata. The estimation of model parameters by maximum likelihood is especially difficult when the number of cases per stratum is greater than one. In this case, the denominator of each cluster contribution to the conditional likelihood involves a complex integral in high dimension, which leads to convergence problems in the numerical maximization. In this article we show how these computational complexities can be bypassed using a global two-step analysis for nonlinear mixed effects models. The first step estimates the cluster-specific parameters and can be achieved with standard statistical methods and software based on maximum likelihood for independent data. The second step uses the EM-algorithm in conjunction with conditional restricted maximum likelihood to estimate the population parameters. We use simulations to demonstrate that the method works well when the analysis is based on a large number of strata per cluster, as in many ecological studies. We apply the proposed twostep approach to evaluate habitat selection by pairs of bison roaming freely in their natural environment. This article has supplementary material online.

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Foraging ecology of bison at the landscape and plant community levels: the applicability of energy maximization principles

Cited by 133 publications

References 46 publications

Foraging behaviour and occupation pattern of beef cows on a heterogeneous pasture in the Swiss Alps

Foraging behaviour and occupation pattern of beef cows on a heterogeneous pasture in the Swiss Alps

Foraging behavior of heritage versus recently introduced herbivores on desert landscapes of the American Southwest

Conditional Logistic Regression With Longitudinal Follow-up and Individual-Level Random Coefficients: A Stable and Efficient Two-Step Estimation Method

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