Life at the edge: Roe deer occurrence at the opposite ends of their geographical distribution, Norway and Portugal

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIn the face of climate change and habitat fragmentation there is an increasingly urgent need to learn more about factors that influence species distribution patterns and levels of environmental tolerance. Particular insights can be obtained by looking at the edges of a species range, especially from species with wide distributions. The European roe deer was chosen as a model species due to its widespread distribution. By using pellet group counts, we studied summer and winter habitat use of this herbivore at two of the extreme edges of its distribution -southwest of Portugal, and northeast of Norway -in relation to a range of fine-scale environmental factors including forest structure, vegetation characteristics and human disturbance. Our first prediction that roe deer would respond differently to human activity in both counties was supported. While in Norway roe deer are always close to houses, in Portugal they are either far (in summer) or indifferent (winter). However, everywhere and in every season, roe deer are far from roads. Our second prediction that roe deer better tolerate anthropogenic disturbances in the area where the importance of limiting factors is higher (Norway) was validated. However, our third prediction that anthropogenic disturbance would be less tolerated by roe deer outside the limiting seasons in each country was not supported. Our results suggest that roe deer perceive human activities differently in the two countries and that roe deer better tolerate anthropogenic disturbances in Norway.

Assessing landscape resistance to roe deer dispersal using fuzzy set theory and multicriteria analysis: a case study in Central Spain

“…This behaviour has been observed in roe deer (Acevedo et al 2005;Farfán et al 2009;Mateos-Quesada 2005;Pays et al 2012). In addition, roe deer prefer areas that are farther away from urban areas and linear transport infrastructure (Acevedo et al 2011a;Duarte et al 2010;Torres et al 2012).…”

“…Patches with areas of at least 20 ha were selected based on the optimum density of roe deer in deciduous forests of the central Iberian Peninsula, whereas an area of at least 50 h of conifer forest was considered a patch(Acevedo et al 2010;Duarte et al 2010; Mateos-Quesada 2005;Torres et al 2012) b Defined based on an area of influence of radius 500 m for noises of C50 dB…”

Using Zero-Inflated Models to Predict the Relative Distribution and Abundance of Roe Deer Over Very Large Spatial Scales

“…environmental data) and to human activity (Table 1). These data were chosen based selection (Torres et al 2011, Torres et al 2012 and on the availability of digital maps at the scale of the study area. The data were recoded into raster layers of 1 km 2 spatial resolution using a geographic information system (ArcGIS 9.3.1).…”

“…Based on this, we expected roe deer to be negatively associated with increas ing snow depth (Prediction 1). We also expected a selection for agricultural lands (Prediction 2) forage resources (Panzacchi et al 2010, Torres et al 2012. Other variables that describe habitat, climatic and human disturbance characteristics were also included in an attempt to improve model predictions.…”

Situación de las poblaciones de corzo andaluz (Capreolus capreolus) en las sierras occidentales de Málaga

“…De hecho, aunque los modelos de hábitat desarrollados para la especie indican cierto rechazo a la presencia humana y a los factores ambientales ligados a ella (Aragón et al 1995b), son frecuentes los avistamientos de corzos en zonas rurales, cercanas a carreteras, autopistas, aeropuertos e incluso próximas a núcleos urbanizados (Mateos-Quesada 2005a, Duarte et al 2009). Esto indica que la tolerancia de la especie a los factores antropogénicos es variable y está relacionada con la influencia de otros factores ambientales de mayor peso que condicionan de forma más directa su distribución (Torres et al 2012).…”