How do humans impact yellow-bellied marmots? An integrative analysis

Morgan, Alyssa; Monclús, Raquel; Nelson, Julia L.; Foli, Eliza; Li, Chunwang; Blumstein, Daniel T.

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105495

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(60 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Indeed, a prior study showed that marmots may habituate to humans if they are continuously exposed to them (Uchida & Blumstein, 2021). Since our field sampling was conducted in an area with considerable outdoor recreation (Morgan et al., 2021), marmots tended to tolerate some degree of human disturbance (Uchida & Blumstein, 2021). This habituation to humans might buffer potentially deleterious effects of photography, which might be an important behavioural strategy to cope with human disturbance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to their well‐studied antipredator behaviour, marmots have been used to study the effect of human activity on vigilance behaviours and risk assessment (Li et al., 2011; Uchida & Blumstein, 2021). Additionally, the long‐term human disturbance has modified marmots' vigilance behaviour and risk assessment towards humans (Morgan et al., 2021; Uchida & Blumstein, 2021). To test whether marmots increased vigilance in response to the visual presence of cameras, we approached marmots until they visually responded to the observer by looking towards them and then either pointed a camera with a zoom lens at them or simply looked at them while conducting a 1 min focal behavioural observation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Take only pictures, leave only… Cameras influence marmot vigilance but not perceptions of risk

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ecotourism provides an opportunity to experience nature that may promote its conservation. Ecotourists photograph wildlife, and photography plays an important role in focusing public's attention on nature. Although photography is believed to be a low-impact activity, how the visual stimulus of cameras influences wildlife remains unknown. Since animals are known to fear eyes pointed towards them because of similarity to predator eyes, we predicted that cameras with zoom lens would increase vigilance. Using yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) and adopting a behavioural approach to identify marmots' response to photography, we experimentally quantified proportion of time allocated to vigilance during foraging and flight initiation distance (FID, the distance at which a marmot started to flee from an approaching human) towards humans with and without a camera. We focused on time allocated to vigilance measured in three ways: the proportion of time when marmots moved their head and body towards observers (looking towards observer), the proportion of time when marmots moved their head away from observers (looking away from observer) and the total vigilance (sum of looking towards and away from observer). While a camera was pointed at a marmot, individuals allocated more time to looking towards the observer and less time to looking away from the observer than they did without a camera. However, the total proportion of time allocated to vigilance was not different when marmots were approached by humans with and without a camera. Additionally, whether or not an observer was carrying a camera had no effect on FID. Our results indicated that cameras distracted marmots but did not influence their subsequent risk assessment; marmots may be curious about cameras but were not threatened by them. However, capturing an individual's attention may reduce their ability to look out for predators and thus may increase vulnerability to predation. Regulating photography in locations where predation risk is high or vulnerable species ranges' overlap with humans may be required.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%