NRC 261 1st Edition Lecture 10 Outline of Last Lecture II Types of Biodiversity III Why Conservation Genetics IV Techniques V How Genetics Used in Conservation a Among Species AS b Within a Species WS c Among Individuals AI VI Potential Problems VII Solutions Outline of Current Lecture II Movement Home Range a Home Range b Travel Paths c Areas of Frequent Use III Movement Patterns a Range Residents b Migrators c Nomads IV Social Interactions Land Use a Territoriality V Social Interactions Family Life Current Lecture Animal Behavior What do you need to know about behavior in order to effectively conserve manage the These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute largest elephant population in southern Africa Behaviors important to conservation Feeding Hunting how they go about getting resources Mating Movement Patterns like migration Activity Patterns ex poaching of elephants done during day time must change behavior to forage at night related to human behavior and other conspecifics Social Interactions how groups or individuals within a species interact with each other ex Elephants have a complicated social structure understanding this is important they have long term care of young as long as it is for humans Today s topics Movements pattern and extent ultimate causes how big an area animals might move and why the reasons animals move in certain ways Social interactions land use spacing and family life variation under different circumstances having to do with the amount of space some have a rich family life in relation to others Movements Home Range Home range the area an individual animal uses for obtaining resources food mates and ability to care for its young area an individual uses during the course of it s lifetime OR over a particular time period a season etc is where it spends its time depends on the idea of habitat the size of a home range depends on the quality of the resources if you have everything you need you don t need a very large home range ex commuters to UMass have a larger home range than those who live on campus Estimating and understanding a home range barn owl example Repeatedly locating an animal and circumscribing the area it uses roost in barns safe dry place to be lots of animals they can eat map shown on slides dots are places that an owl was located and plotted The big dot is where the owl was most often found or repeatedly found if you draw lines between these dots it would give you this home range Travel paths movement paths it says that the place in the middle with lots of locations is the nest site or the day roost always went back to one place during the day and the dark little dots are the night time locations could see a pattern went out and came back sometimes went out to a couple places and then came back owl wasn t in between those places very often Areas of frequent use why does the owl go to those particular places spent all day in a barn went to alfalfa field legume rich in nitrogen small mammals also like to eat this too so there s mice in the alfalfa field that the owl wants owl didn t visit row crops soybeans or corn because it s not a place to find lots of small mammals now you understand why the owl s home range is a certain size When it has to get food it has to fly a relatively long distance to get to the food resources are spread out If the farmstead was in the middle of the Alfalfa field then the owl would have a smaller homestead Home range size varies with Body weight and trophic level graph with different primate species the ones represented by black are different kinds of primates graph measuring the weight of a group of them they can eat vegetation and only vegetation the larger the individual or the larger the group as the bio mass gets larger the home range gets bigger biggest groups need the biggest home ranges if you re a tiny individual you don t need a very large home range lines are the lines of best fit The whites on average are higher because they also eat fruit and meat chimps in particular and these sources are more rare than vegetation rare resources distributed more widely in a landscape so an animal the same size as another animal but that needs those rare resources will need a larger home range common resources smaller home range rare resources larger home range Food quantity and distribution relationship between home range size of wolf pack as it relates to the deer density as you get more and more deer the home range size goes down when the density of deer is higher wolf pack doesn t have to go as far for food Movement Patterns Range residents there is a particular place where an animal lives and it stays there the whole year year round resources abundance can vary with seasons but as long as there is enough the animals will stay there resources are distributed regularly spread out so the animal uses the whole range the whole year Gray fox or raccoons for example home range in summer and winter might c hange a tiny bit in size and shape but they ll settle in after a while Migrators animal in one place one part of the year and another a different part of the year annual event usually a relatively long distance move going from point A to point B results from seasonal changes in resource abundance can change between seasons relative resource abundance distribution of resources birds fly south in the winter ex salamanders migrated from uplands to lowlands where they were gonna lay eggs and reproduce first night of spring that it rains and it is above 40 degrees salamanders will migrate ex columbia spotted frog does a similar migration around 1 000 meters Bighorn sheep in the mountains of the west spend winter at low elevations with cover and food and in summer they migrate to high elevation with fresh spring grasses high quality food that is otherwise unavailable American oystercatcher variety of birds that make thousand mile migrations warblers that nest in new england in the springtime go down to the caribbean or south america in the winter Nomads unpredictable movement under circumstances where the resources are unpredictable time might be resources in a particular season but occurs at different places distribution large scale movement ex Mongolian gazelles medium sized gazelle that live in the grasslands of eastern Mongolia huge expanse not great quality grass the rain and lightning strikes aren t