Home range, range overlap, and site fidelity of introduced Siberian chipmunks in a suburban French forest

Home range size, range overlap, and multiyear site fidelity were investigated for introduced Siberian chipmunks (Tamias sibiricus) in a French suburban forest from bimonthly trapping sessions for 4 years (2004-2007). Annual home range sizes (100% minimum convex polygon, +/- SE) were estimated from 39 trapping histories of 28 different adult residents. Males (N = 13, 1.86 +/- 0.32 ha) had a home range 2.5 times larger than females (N = 26, 0.71 +/- 0.08 ha); a male home range included significantly more trapping centers (arithmetic mean of capture locations) of females (5.5 +/- 0.7) than of males (2.3 +/- 0.5). Chipmunks exhibited strong multiyear site fidelity: mean distance between annual trapping centers of individuals trapped over two successive years was small (N = 82, 26 +/- 2 m) compared to the largest home range length (ranging from 36 to 281 m); overlap between annual home range sizes of residents was 84 +/- 5% (N = 11). These results improve our understanding of the space occupation of this unknown species in a novel environment.