Journal
ECOGRAPHY
Volume 39, Issue 1, Pages 26-35Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ecog.01260
Keywords
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Categories
Funding
- Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures
- Aquarium du Quebec
- ArcticNet
- Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
- Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums Conservation
- Canada Research Chair
- Canadian Wildlife Federation
- Circumpolar/Boreal Alberta Research
- Environment Canada
- Hauser Bears
- Killam Trusts
- Killam Research Fellowship
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- NSERC Discovery
- NSERC Accelerator
- NSERC Northern Supplement
- Northern Scientific Training Program
- Pittsburgh Zoo
- Polar Continental Shelf Program
- Polar Bears International
- Quark Expeditions
- Steve and Elaine Antoniuk Graduate Scholarship
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Home range size estimates are often used to assess the amount of space required for animals to perform the activities essential for their survival and reproduction. However, in moving environments, traditional home range estimates may be ill suited to this task. In particular, traditional home range estimates are inaccurate representations of the space required by polar bears Ursus maritimus. The sea ice is the prime foraging platform of polar bears, and estimating the amount of ice encountered by bears may provide a better approximation of space use. We develop a technique to make these estimates. Our results confirm that polar bears use more space than terrestrial carnivores to find the resources and conditions they require. We also show that the traditional geographic home range can underestimate both the movement of bears and the amount of space encountered. Moreover, area of ice encountered increased with ice drift, indicating that bears living on highly mobile ice might be exposed to higher energetic costs, and potentially larger energetic gains, than bears inhabiting more stable ice. The methods and concepts presented here can serve as a foundation for new approaches to study the space use of the many species living in moving environments.
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