Journal
ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
Volume 77, Issue 1, Pages 23-28Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.09.025
Keywords
Arctic; fidelity; grizzly bear; home range drift; MRPP; Schoener's ratio; Ursus arctos
Categories
Funding
- University of Alberta
- Government of Northwest Territories
- Department of Environment and Natural Resources (Inuvik Region)
- Inuvialuit Land Claim Wildlife Studies Implementation Fund
- ConocoPhillips (North) Canada Limited
- Alberta Cooperative Conservation Research Unit
- Western Biophysical Program of the Government of Northwest Territories
- Polar Continental Shelf Project
- Endangered Species Recovery Fund-World Wildlife Fund
- Lorraine Allison Scholarship Trust Fund
- Circumpolar/Boreal Alberta Research Grant
- Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Northern Scientific Training Program
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Wildlife Management Advisory Council (Northwest Territories)
- Inuvialuit Game Council
- Inuvik Hunters and Trappers Committee
- Tuktoyaktuk Hunters and Trappers Committee
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Space use by animals can provide insight into the habitats in which they live. In predictable landscapes where high-quality habitat is distributed heterogeneously, fidelity can increase individual fitness because animals benefit from familiarity. We tested the hypothesis that space use and the level of site fidelity will reflect habitat productivity and the spatiotemporal distribution of resources. To test our hypothesis we examined site fidelity in 41 grizzly bears, Ursus arctos, during 2003-2006 in the Mackenzie Delta, in Canada's Arctic. We estimated annual home range size for males ((x) over bar 1215 km(2)) and females ((x) over bar 680 km(2)) using the 95% fixed kernel approach. We used three methods to examine the level of home range fidelity in consecutive years. Bear locations were largely spatially nonoverlapping between years, which represented a pattern of both low site and home range fidelity. Although distances between home range centres were small for both males ((x) over bar 7: 7 km) and females ((x) over bar 8: 4 km), mean percentage overlap was only 24.2%. Our observations suggest that bears remain philopatric to a region, however, position and configuration of the annual range drifts over time. The low fidelity that we observed suggests an adaptive strategy of space use for low-density populations in regions of low productivity where quality habitats are spatially and temporally heterogeneous. We suggest that traditional definitions of a home range may be too limited for Arctic grizzlies and propose that the multiannual home range is a more meaningful measure for describing space use. (C) 2008 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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