Space use by animals on the urban fringe: interactive effects of sex and personality

Abstract Personality traits shape individual perceptions of risks and rewards, and so, should affect how animals value and use their environment. Evidence is emerging that personality affects foraging, space use, and exploitation of novel environments such as urban habitat. But the influence of personality is also hypothesized to be sex-dependent when primary motivation for space use differs between sexes, as often occurs in polygynous species. We tested the influence of personality traits, interacting with sex, on space use by the polygynous common brushtail possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, in an urban-woodland boundary in Sydney, Australia. We quantified personality traits, including exploration, using behavioral assays in an artificial arena. We also GPS-tracked free-ranging individuals, and measured range size, core area: home range, and proportional urban range. We found that personality traits affected space use either as a main effect or, as predicted, an interaction with sex. More exploratory animals, regardless of sex, had higher core area: home range ratios and proportionally larger ranges within urban habitat. However, less exploratory females yet more exploratory males had larger ranges. Our findings provide new insight into movement ecology by demonstrating, for the first time, the sex-dependent influence of personality. The demonstrated influence of personality on urban use by possums also suggests a personality filter for wildlife, as populations transition into urban areas. Finally, as individuals at the interface between urban and natural habitat are also a conduit between the two, a corollary of our findings is that there may be personality-mediated spread of disease across this boundary.

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Prevalence and Genetic Characterization of Cryptosporidium Isolates from Common Brushtail Possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) Adapted to Urban Settings

Applied and Environmental Microbiology ◽

10.1128/aem.00809-08 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 74 (17) ◽

pp. 5549-5555 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Nichola J. Hill ◽

Elizabeth M. Deane ◽

Michelle L. Power

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

White Blood Cells ◽

Urban Setting ◽

Urban Habitat ◽

Brushtail Possum ◽

Trichosurus Vulpecula ◽

Sympatric Populations ◽

Cryptosporidium Hominis ◽

Urban Settings ◽

Zoo Animals

ABSTRACT The common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) is one of the most abundant native marsupials in urban Australia, having successfully adapted to utilize anthropogenic resources. The habituation of possums to food and shelter available in human settlements has facilitated interaction with people, pets, and zoo animals, increasing the potential for transmission of zoonotic Cryptosporidium pathogens. This study sought to examine the identity and prevalence of Cryptosporidium species occurring in possums adapted to urban settings compared to possums inhabiting remote woodlands far from urban areas and to characterize the health of the host in response to oocyst shedding. Findings indicated that both populations were shedding oocysts of the same genotype (brushtail possum 1 [BTP1]) that were genetically and morphologically distinct from zoonotic species and genotypes and most closely related to Cryptosporidium species from marsupials. The urban population was shedding an additional five Cryptosporidium isolates that were genetically distinct from BTP1 and formed a sister clade with Cryptosporidium parvum and Cryptosporidium hominis. Possums that were shedding oocysts showed no evidence of pathogenic changes, including elevated levels of white blood cells, diminished body condition (body mass divided by skeletal body length), or reduced nutritional state, suggesting a stable host-parasite relationship typical of Cryptosporidium species that are adapted to the host. Overall, Cryptosporidium occurred with a higher prevalence in possums from urban habitat (11.3%) than in possums from woodland habitat (5.6%); however, the host-specific nature of the genotypes may limit spillover infection in the urban setting. This study determined that the coexistence of possums with sympatric populations of humans, pets, and zoo animals in the urban Australian environment is unlikely to present a threat to public health safety.

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Home Range Characteristics and Diel Patterns in Space Use of Mutton Snapper, Lutjanus Analis, in St. Thomas, Us Virgin Islands

10.21203/rs.3.rs-86898/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah L. Heidmann ◽

Jonathan Jossart ◽

Richard S. Nemeth

Keyword(s):

Home Range ◽

Site Fidelity ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Movement Ecology ◽

Space Use ◽

Virgin Islands ◽

Home Ranges ◽

Us Virgin Islands ◽

Diel Patterns ◽

Management Actions

Abstract Background: The movement ecology of mutton snapper Lutjanus analis is poorly understood despite their ecological and economic importance in the Caribbean. Passive acoustic telemetry was used to determine home ranges of six adult L. analis, including diel patterns, in Brewers Bay, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Understanding long-term space use, including site fidelity and habitat usage, is necessary to implement effective and appropriate management actions for a species with extensive space and resource needs.Results: Individual L. analis were tracked over an average period of 316 days (range 125 - 509 days) and showed high site fidelity to relatively small home ranges (mean ± SD: 0.103 ± 0.028 km2, range 0.019 - 0.190 km2) and core use areas with low overlap among individuals. Most home ranges had a habitat composition dominated by seagrass and to a lesser degree, coral reef and/or pavement. Nighttime activity spaces were distinct from but contained within daytime areas.Conclusions: Mutton snapper showed strong site fidelity to home ranges in Brewers Bay. Two individuals that were absent from the array for more than a few hours were detected at separate arrays at spawning aggregation sites. This study expands upon knowledge of mutton snapper home range characteristics, highlights the importance of maintaining adjacent high-quality habitat types in any spatial management plan, and encourages the adoption of other types of management strategies, particularly for transient-aggregating species.

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Home range characteristics and diel patterns in space use of mutton snapper, Lutjanus analis, in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

Animal Biotelemetry ◽

10.1186/s40317-021-00237-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Sarah L. Heidmann ◽

Jonathan Jossart ◽

Melissa Kimble ◽

Richard S. Nemeth

Keyword(s):

Home Range ◽

Site Fidelity ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Movement Ecology ◽

Space Use ◽

Virgin Islands ◽

Home Ranges ◽

Us Virgin Islands ◽

Diel Patterns ◽

Management Actions

Abstract Background The movement ecology of mutton snapper Lutjanus analis is poorly understood despite their ecological and economic importance in the Caribbean. Passive acoustic telemetry was used to determine home ranges of six adult L. analis, including diel patterns, in Brewers Bay, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Understanding long-term space use, including site fidelity and habitat usage, is necessary to implement effective and appropriate management actions for a species with extensive space and resource needs. Results Individual L. analis were tracked over an average period of 316 days (range 125–509 days) and showed high site fidelity to relatively small home ranges (mean ± SD: 0.103 ± 0.028 km2, range 0.019–0.190 km2) and core use areas with low overlap among individuals. Most home ranges had a habitat composition dominated by seagrass and to a lesser degree, coral reef and/or pavement. Nighttime activity spaces were distinct from but contained within daytime areas. Conclusions Mutton snapper showed strong site fidelity to home ranges in Brewers Bay. Two individuals that were absent from the array for more than a few hours were detected at separate arrays at spawning aggregation sites. This study expands upon knowledge of mutton snapper home range characteristics, highlights the importance of maintaining adjacent high-quality habitat types in any spatial management plan, and encourages the adoption of other types of management strategies, particularly for transient-aggregating species.

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Movement ecology of vulnerable lowland tapirs across a gradient of human disturbance

10.1101/2021.11.12.468362 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

E P Medici ◽

Stefano Mezzini ◽

Christen Herbert Fleming ◽

Justin Calabrese ◽

Michael J Noonan

Keyword(s):

Home Range ◽

Atlantic Forest ◽

Human Disturbance ◽

Animal Movement ◽

Human Impacts ◽

Movement Ecology ◽

Space Use ◽

Conservation Strategies ◽

Detectable Effect ◽

Movement Behaviour

Animal movement is a key ecological process that is tightly coupled to local environmental conditions. While agriculture, urbanisation, and transportation infrastructure are critical to human socio-economic improvement, these have spurred substantial changes in animal movement across the globe with potential impacts on fitness and survival. Notably, however, human disturbance can have differential effects across species, and responses to human activities are thus largely taxa and context specific. As human disturbance is only expected to worsen over the next decade it is critical to better understand how species respond to human disturbance in order to develop effective, case-specific conservation strategies. Here, we use an extensive telemetry dataset collected over 22 years to fill a critical knowledge gap in the movement ecology of lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) across a gradient of human disturbance within three biomes in southern Brazil: the Pantanal, Cerrado, and Atlantic Forest. From these data we found that the mean home range size across all monitored tapirs was 8.31 km2 (95% CI: 6.53 - 10.42), with no evidence that home range sizes differed between sexes nor age groups. Interestingly, although the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, and Pantanal vary substantially in habitat composition, levels of human disturbance, and tapir population densities, we found that lowland tapir movement behaviour and space use were consistent across all three biomes. Human disturbance also had no detectable effect on lowland tapir movement. Lowland tapirs living in the most altered habitats we monitored exhibited movement behaviour that was comparable to that of tapirs living in a near pristine environment. Contrary to our expectations, we observed very little individual variability in lowland tapir space use and movement, and human impacts on the landscape also had no measurable effect on their movement. Lowland tapir movement behaviour thus appears to exhibit very little phenotypic plasticity. Crucially, the lack of any detectable response to anthropogenic disturbance suggests that human modified habitats risk being ecological traps for tapirs and this information should be factored into conservation actions and species management aimed towards protecting lowland tapir populations.

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Range-wide factors shaping space use and movements by the Neotropic’s flagship predator: the jaguar

10.32942/osf.io/k2hqz ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jeffrey James Thompson ◽

Ronaldo Morato ◽

Bernardo Niebuhr ◽

Vanesa Bejarano Alegre ◽

Júlia Emi F. Oshima ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Home Range ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Movement Ecology ◽

Space Use ◽

Home Range Size ◽

Range Size ◽

Anthropogenic Factors ◽

Road Density ◽

Modeling Framework ◽

Transboundary Cooperation

The range-wide management of the jaguar (Panthera onca) depends upon maintaining core populations connected through multi-national, transboundary cooperation, which is dependent upon understanding the movement ecology and space use of jaguars throughout their range. Using 117 telemetry trajectories from 12 ecoregions, we examined the landscape-level environmental and anthropogenic factors related to jaguar home range size and movement parameters. Range-wide and at the ecoregional scale home range size decreased with increasing net productivity and increased with increasing road density. Also, range-wide, home range size decreased with increasing forest cover and decreasing human population density. Movement within home ranges was best explained by a different set of environmental covariates. Range-wide predictions of home range size were consistent with expectations based upon density estimates. Our findings provide a mechanism to evaluate range-wide habitat quality for jaguars and an inferential modeling framework that can be adapted to the conservation of other large terrestrial carnivores.

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Surveillance and movements of Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) in the bovine tuberculosis region of Michigan

Epidemiology and Infection ◽

10.1017/s0950268813000629 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 141 (7) ◽

pp. 1498-1508 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

W. D. WALTER ◽

J. W. FISCHER ◽

C. W. ANDERSON ◽

D. R. MARKS ◽

T. DELIBERTO ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Home Range ◽

Bovine Tuberculosis ◽

Bos Taurus ◽

Infectious Agent ◽

Didelphis Virginiana ◽

Core Area ◽

Brushtail Possum ◽

Similar Species ◽

Virginia Opossum ◽

Cattle Farms

SUMMARYWildlife reservoir hosts of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) include Eurasian badgers (Meles meles) and brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) in the UK and New Zealand, respectively. Similar species warrant further investigation in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan, USA due to the continued presence of bTB on cattle farms. Most research in Michigan, USA has focused on interactions between white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and cattle (Bos taurus) for the transmission of the infectious agent of bTB, Mycobacterium bovis, due to high deer densities and feeding practices. However, limited data are available on medium-sized mammals such as Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana; hereafter referred to as opossum) and their movements and home range in Michigan near cattle farms. We conducted surveillance of medium-sized mammals on previously depopulated cattle farms for presence of M. bovis infections and equipped opossum with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to assess potential differences in home range between farms inside and outside the bTB core area that has had cattle test positive for M. bovis. On farms inside the bTB core area, prevalence in opossum was comparable [6%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2·0–11·0] to prevalence in raccoon (Procyon lotor; 4%, 95% CI 1·0–9·0, P = 0·439) whereas only a single opossum tested positive for M. bovis on farms outside the bTB core area. The prevalence in opossum occupying farms that had cattle test positive for M. bovis was higher (6·4%) than for opossum occupying farms that never had cattle test positive for M. bovis (0·9%, P = 0·01). Mean size of home range for 50% and 95% estimates were similar by sex (P = 0·791) both inside or outside the bTB core area (P = 0·218). Although surveillance efforts and home range were not assessed on the same farms, opossum use of farms near structures was apparent as was selection for farms over surrounding forested habitats. The use of farms, stored feed, and structures by opossum, their ability to serve as vectors of M. bovis, and their propensity to ingest contaminated sources of M. bovis requires additional research in Michigan, USA.

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