Search efficiency of free-ranging plains bison for optimal food items

Courant, Sabrina; Fortin, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.08.003

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…represented 45 % of the winter diet, irrespective of sex or seasonal differences, which is less than half of that reported by Larter and Gates (1991). Unlike the reported dominance of Carex atherodes in the winter diet of both wood bison (Reynolds et al 1978;Larter and Gates 1991) and plains bison (Fortin et al 2002;Courant and Fortin 2012) in boreal and sub-boreal environments, respectively, wood bison in Yukon consumed at least nine species of Carex spp., with none constituting more than 25 % of the composition of Carex spp. in the winter diet.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 61%

Winter diets of reintroduced bison (Bison bison) in northwestern Canada

Jung

2015

Mamm Res

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I examined the winter diets of a reintroduced population of bison (Bison bison) in a mountainous region of northwestern Canada. The impetus of this study was to examine the winter diets of bison in this ecological region and to test for sexual and seasonal variation in the winter diet. Microhistological analyses of fecal samples from animals of known sex-and age-classes were examined to determine winter diets. I evaluated the hypothesis that sexual segregation in bison may be due to differences in diet. In addition, diet composition between early and late winter was examined to test for seasonal differences. Overall, bison winter diets were diverse, including at least 31 genera of vascular plants, but dominated by sedges (Carex). Nine species of Carex were identified in the winter diet. Diets of adult males in early winter differed in percentages of 7 forage classes used from those in late winter. The proportion of shrubs increased in latewinter diets, while that of sedges decreased. No evidence was found to support hypotheses of sexual segregation in bison based on differences in diet, at least for this population during late winter. This study shows that bison diets in winter are more diverse than previously thought based on studies in lowland boreal environments, where dietary niche breadth was comparatively narrow. Dietary flexibility is important within the context of choosing new sites for reintroducing bison, or predicting colonization of vacant habitats as existing populations grow.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 61%

Winter diets of reintroduced bison (Bison bison) in northwestern Canada

Jung

2015

Mamm Res

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“…Forest communities were dominated by aspen, spruce ( Picea spp. ), and jack pine ( Pinus banksiana ), while meadow communities were composed of grasses, sedges, and rushes (Courant and Fortin 2012). Ungulate prey species included an at‐risk population of free‐ranging plains bison (Cherry et al 2019, Simon and Fortin 2019), moose ( Alces alces ), elk ( Cervus canadensis ), white‐tailed deer, and mule deer ( O. hemionus ).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Discriminating grey wolf kill sites using GPS clusters

2022

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Characteristics of spatio‐temporal clusters of locations from global positioning system (GPS)‐collars have been used to distinguish kill sites of various predators. We deployed GPS collars on 9 grey wolves (Canis lupus) in the southwest area of Prince Albert National Park in central Saskatchewan, Canada, and used a GPS location clustering algorithm to identify kill sites of ungulate and other large‐bodied prey during winter, December 2013–March 2017. We used logistic regression in a model‐selection framework to determine if spatio‐temporal and habitat characteristics of grey wolf GPS clusters could be used to reliably identify sites where wolves had killed prey. Global positioning system clusters were more likely to be wolf kill sites when they had a higher number of location fixes, did not begin within 300 m and 30 days of a previous cluster, did not begin within 1 km and 4 days of a previous cluster, began in the evening, had a high percentage of fixes occurring during the day, occurred farther from open habitat, and had both a high number of location fixes and a high percentage of fixes occurring during the day. Our results highlight the limits of using spatio‐temporal clusters with a fix rate of 1/hour to discriminate wolf kill sites in systems dominated by deer (Odocoileus spp.) because of the associated short handling time with these prey.

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“…The foraging patterns of consumers result from behavioural adjustments to multi-level patterns of resource distribution [21], [22]. The food bites of a herbivore can be clustered into plant patches, which in turn, can be aggregated in foraging sites, and several of these sites ultimately comprise the animal's home range [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Heterogeneity in the Strength of Plant-Herbivore Interactions under Predation Risk: The Tale of Bison Foraging in Wolf Country

Harvey

Fortin

2013

PLoS ONE

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Spatial heterogeneity in the strength of trophic interactions is a fundamental property of food web spatial dynamics. The feeding effort of herbivores should reflect adaptive decisions that only become rewarding when foraging gains exceed 1) the metabolic costs, 2) the missed opportunity costs of not foraging elsewhere, and 3) the foraging costs of anti-predator behaviour. Two aspects of these costs remain largely unexplored: the link between the strength of plant-herbivore interactions and the spatial scale of food-quality assessment, and the predator-prey spatial game. We modeled the foraging effort of free-ranging plains bison (Bison bison bison) in winter, within a mosaic of discrete meadows. Spatial patterns of bison herbivory were largely driven by a search for high net energy gains and, to a lesser degree, by the spatial game with grey wolves (Canis lupus). Bison decreased local feeding effort with increasing metabolic and missed opportunity costs. Bison herbivory was most consistent with a broad-scale assessment of food patch quality, i.e., bison grazed more intensively in patches with a low missed opportunity cost relative to other patches available in the landscape. Bison and wolves had a higher probability of using the same meadows than expected randomly. This co-occurrence indicates wolves are ahead in the spatial game they play with bison. Wolves influenced bison foraging at fine scale, as bison tended to consume less biomass at each feeding station when in meadows where the risk of a wolf's arrival was relatively high. Also, bison left more high-quality vegetation in large than small meadows. This behavior does not maximize their energy intake rate, but is consistent with bison playing a shell game with wolves. Our assessment of bison foraging in a natural setting clarifies the complex nature of plant-herbivore interactions under predation risk, and reveals how spatial patterns in herbivory emerge from multi-scale landscape heterogeneity.

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Search efficiency of free-ranging plains bison for optimal food items

Cited by 11 publications

References 91 publications

Winter diets of reintroduced bison (Bison bison) in northwestern Canada

Winter diets of reintroduced bison (Bison bison) in northwestern Canada

Discriminating grey wolf kill sites using GPS clusters

Spatial Heterogeneity in the Strength of Plant-Herbivore Interactions under Predation Risk: The Tale of Bison Foraging in Wolf Country

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