Department of Biology
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Browsing Department of Biology by Subject "Animal Behavior"
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Item Open Access Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul: managing threatened predators of endangered and declining prey species(2019-10-15) Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc; Davidson, Zeke; Dheer, Arjun; Pratt, Laura; Preston, Elizabeth; Gilicho, Saibala; Mwololo, Mary; Chege, Geoffrey; MacDonald, Suzanne E.; Doncaster, C PatrickConservation policy and practice can sometimes run counter to their mutual aims of ensuring species survival. In Kenya, where threatened predators such as lion deplete endangered prey such as Grevy’s zebra, conservation practitioners seek to ensure species success through exclusive strategies of protection, population increase and preservation. We found strong selection for the endangered Grevy’s zebra by both lion and hyena on two small fenced conservancies in Kenya. Despite abundant diversity of available prey, Grevy’s zebra were selected disproportionately more than their availability, while other highly available species such as buffalo were avoided. Lions were therefore not alone in presenting a credible threat to Grevy’s zebra survival. Conservation practitioners must consider interlinked characteristics of prey selection, resource availability and quality, the interplay between carnivore guild members and landscape scale population trends performance in wildlife management decisions.Item Open Access Colonization and usage of an artificial urban wetland complex by freshwater turtles(2018-08-08) Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc; Davy, Christina; Lathrop, Amy; Followes, Emma; Ramesbottom, Andrew; Chreston, Andrea; MacDonald, Suzanne E.Conservation authorities invest heavily in the restoration and/or creation of wetlands to counteract the destruction of habitat caused by urbanization. Monitoring the colonization of these new wetlands is critical to an adaptive management process. We conducted a turtle mark-recapture survey in a 250 ha artificially created wetland complex in a large North American city (Toronto, Ontario). We found that two of Ontario’s eight native turtle species (Snapping turtle (SN), Chelydra serpentina, and Midland Painted (MP) turtle, Chrysemys picta marginata) were abundant and both were confirmed nesting. The Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) was present but not well established. Species richness and turtle density were not equally distributed throughout the wetland complex. We noted SN almost exclusively populated one water body, while other areas of the wetland had a varying representation of both species. The sex ratios of both SN and MP turtles were 1:1. We tracked the movement of Snapping and Blanding’s turtles and found that most turtles explored at least two water bodies in the park, that females explored more water bodies than males, and that 95% of turtles showed fidelity to individual overwintering wetlands. We performed DNA analysis of two Blanding’s turtles found in the created wetlands and could not assign these turtles to any known profiled populations. The genetic data suggest that the turtles probably belong to a remnant local population. We discuss the implications of our results for connectivity of artificial wetlands and the importance of the whole wetland complex to this turtle assemblage.Item Open Access A ghost fence-gap: surprising wildlife usage of an obsolete fence crossing(2018-11-27) Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc; Kaaria, Timothy N.; Mwololo, Mary; Davidson, Zeke; MacDonald, Suzanne E.Wildlife fencing has become more prevalent throughout Africa, although it has come with a price of increased habitat fragmentation and loss of habitat connectivity. In an effort to increase connectivity, managers of fenced conservancies can place strategic gaps along the fences to allow wildlife access to outside habitat, permitting exploration, dispersal and seasonal migration. Wildlife can become accustomed to certain movement pathways and can show fidelity to these routes over many years, even at the path level. Our study site has three dedicated wildlife crossings (fence-gaps) in its 142 km perimeter fence, and we continuously monitor these fence-gaps with camera-traps. We monitored one fence-gap before and after a 1.49 km fence section was completely removed and 6.8 km was reconfigured to leave only a two-strand electric fence meant to exclude elephant and giraffe, all other species being able to cross under the exclusionary fence. The removal and reconfiguration of the fence effectively rendered this fence-gap (which was left in place structurally) as a “ghost” fence-gap, as wildlife now had many options along the 8.29 km shared border to cross into the neighboring habitat. Although we documented some decline in the number of crossing events at the ghost-gap, surprisingly, 19 months after the total removal of the fence, we continued to document the usage of this crossing location by wildlife including by species that had not been previously detected at this location. We discuss potential drivers of this persistent and counterintuitive behavior as well as management implications.Item Open Access Testing the effects of perimeter fencing and elephant exclosures on lion predation patterns in a Kenyan wildlife conservancy(2016-02-11) Dupuis-Desormeaux, Marc; Davidson, Zeke; Pratt, Laura; Mwololo, Mary; MacDonald, Suzanne E.The use of fences to segregate wildlife can change predator and prey behaviour. Predators can learn to incorporate fencing into their hunting strategies and prey can learn to avoid foraging near fences. A twelve-strand electric predator-proof fence surrounds our study site. There are also porous one-strand electric fences used to create exclosures where elephant (and giraffe) cannot enter in order to protect blocs of browse vegetation for two critically endangered species, the black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) and the Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi). The denser vegetation in these exclosures attracts both browsing prey and ambush predators. In this study we examined if lion predation patterns differed near the perimeter fencing and inside the elephant exclosures by mapping the location of kills. We used a spatial analysis to compare the predation patterns near the perimeter fencing and inside the exclosures to predation in the rest of the conservancy. Predation was not over-represented near the perimeter fence but the pattern of predation near the fence suggests that fences may be a contributing factor to predation success. Overall, we found that predation was over-represented inside and within 50 m of the exclosures. However, by examining individual exclosures in greater detail using a hot spot analysis, we found that only a few exclosures contained lion predation hot spots. Although some exclosures provide good hunting grounds for lions, we concluded that exclosures did not necessarily create prey-traps per se and that managers could continue to use this type of exclusionary fencing to protect stands of dense vegetation.