Density-dependent habitat selection alters drivers of population distribution in northern Yellowstone elk.
Ecol Lett
; 26(2): 245-256, 2023 Feb.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36573288
ABSTRACT
Although it is well established that density dependence drives changes in organismal abundance over time, relatively little is known about how density dependence affects variation in abundance over space. We tested the hypothesis that spatial trade-offs between food and safety can change the drivers of population distribution, caused by opposing patterns of density-dependent habitat selection (DDHS) that are predicted by the multidimensional ideal free distribution. We addressed this using winter aerial survey data of northern Yellowstone elk (Cervus canadensis) spanning four decades. Supporting our hypothesis, we found positive DDHS for food (herbaceous biomass) and negative DDHS for safety (openness and roughness), such that the primary driver of habitat selection switched from food to safety as elk density decreased from 9.3 to 2.0 elk/km2 . Our results demonstrate how population density can drive landscape-level shifts in population distribution, confounding habitat selection inference and prediction and potentially affecting community-level interactions.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Deer
/
Wolves
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Animals
Country/Region as subject:
America do norte
Language:
En
Journal:
Ecol Lett
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States