Fishing behavior in the red fox: Opportunistic-caching behavior or surplus killing?
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Tobajas J
PROVIDER: S-EPMC10078576 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Fishing behavior in the red fox: Opportunistic-caching behavior or surplus killing?
Tobajas Jorge J Díaz-Ruiz Francisco F
Ecology 20220818 12
Similar Datasets
Project description:Diet-dependent surplus killing in nematodes
| PRJEB33410 | ENA
Project description:gut Metagenome of red fox and corsac fox
| PRJNA646811 | ENA
Project description:Gut microbiome community structure correlates with different behavioral phenotypes in the Belyaev farm-fox experiment
| PRJEB29232 | ENA
Project description:Dispersal of seeds by scatter-hoarding rodents is common among tropical and temperate tree species, including chestnuts in the genus Castanea. Backcrossed (BC) interspecific hybrid chestnuts exhibit wide variation in seed traits: as the parent species (Castanea dentata and C. mollissima) have distinct seed phenotypes and tend to be handled differently by seed dispersers, phenotypic variation in BC trees is likely due to inheritance of genes that have undergone divergent evolution in the parent species. To identify candidate genomic regions for interspecific differences in seed dispersal, we used tagged seeds to measure average dispersal distance for seeds of third-generation BC chestnuts and sequenced pooled whole genomes of mother trees with contrasting seed dispersal: high caching rate/long distance; low caching rate/short distance; no caching. Candidate regions affecting seed dispersal were identified as loci with more C. mollissima alleles in the high caching rate/ long-distance pool than expected by chance and observed in the other two pools. Functional annotations of candidate regions included predicted lipid metabolism, dormancy regulation, seed development, and carbohydrate metabolism genes. The results support the hypothesis that perception of seed dormancy is a predominant factor in squirrel caching decisions, and also indicate profitable directions for future work on the evolutionary genomics of trees and coevolved seed dispersers.
| S-EPMC6262733 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundBiologging now allows detailed recording of animal movement, thus informing behavioural ecology in ways unthinkable just a few years ago. In particular, combining GPS and accelerometry allows spatially explicit tracking of various behaviours, including predation events in large terrestrial mammalian predators. Specifically, identification of location clusters resulting from prey handling allows efficient location of killing events. For small predators with short prey handling times, however, identifying predation events through technology remains unresolved. We propose that a promising avenue emerges when specific foraging behaviours generate diagnostic acceleration patterns. One such example is the caching behaviour of the arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), an active hunting predator strongly relying on food storage when living in proximity to bird colonies.MethodsWe equipped 16 Arctic foxes from Bylot Island (Nunavut, Canada) with GPS and accelerometers, yielding 23 fox-summers of movement data. Accelerometers recorded tri-axial acceleration at 50 Hz while we obtained a sample of simultaneous video recordings of fox behaviour. Multiple supervised machine learning algorithms were tested to classify accelerometry data into 4 behaviours: motionless, running, walking and digging, the latter being associated with food caching. Finally, we assessed the spatio-temporal concordance of fox digging and greater snow goose (Anser caerulescens antlanticus) nesting, to test the ecological relevance of our behavioural classification in a well-known study system dominated by top-down trophic interactions.ResultsThe random forest model yielded the best behavioural classification, with accuracies for each behaviour over 96%. Overall, arctic foxes spent 49% of the time motionless, 34% running, 9% walking, and 8% digging. The probability of digging increased with goose nest density and this result held during both goose egg incubation and brooding periods.ConclusionsAccelerometry combined with GPS allowed us to track across space and time a critical foraging behaviour from a small active hunting predator, informing on spatio-temporal distribution of predation risk in an Arctic vertebrate community. Our study opens new possibilities for assessing the foraging behaviour of terrestrial predators, a key step to disentangle the subtle mechanisms structuring many predator-prey interactions and trophic networks.
| S-EPMC8626921 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Genetic signatures of adaptation revealed from transcriptome sequencing of Arctic and red foxes
| PRJEB7790 | ENA
Project description:The de novo assembly of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) genome has facilitated the development of genomic tools for the species. Efforts to identify the population history of red foxes in North America have previously been limited by a lack of information about the red fox Y-chromosome sequence. However, a megabase of red fox Y-chromosome sequence was recently identified over 2 scaffolds in the reference genome. Here, these scaffolds were scanned for repeated motifs, revealing 194 likely microsatellites. Twenty-three of these loci were selected for primer development and, after testing, produced a panel of 11 novel markers that were analyzed alongside 2 markers previously developed for the red fox from dog Y-chromosome sequence. The markers were genotyped in 76 male red foxes from 4 populations: 7 foxes from Newfoundland (eastern Canada), 12 from Maryland (eastern United States), and 9 from the island of Great Britain, as well as 48 foxes of known North American origin maintained on an experimental farm in Novosibirsk, Russia. The full marker panel revealed 22 haplotypes among these red foxes, whereas the 2 previously known markers alone would have identified only 10 haplotypes. The haplotypes from the 4 populations clustered primarily by continent, but unidirectional gene flow from Great Britain and farm populations may influence haplotype diversity in the Maryland population. The development of new markers has increased the resolution at which red fox Y-chromosome diversity can be analyzed and provides insight into the contribution of males to red fox population diversity and patterns of phylogeography.
| S-EPMC5892395 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Food hoarding is a common behavior used by a variety of animals to cope with periods of low food availability. At the retreating edge of species' distribution, the stressful environment and unfavourable climate conditions may impose severe costs on hoarding behavior. Since relict populations are hotspots for evolution and adaptation, and considering that food hoarding behavior has a strong evolutionary basis, we decided to evaluate the occurrence of behavioral variability in the amount of food cached by the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel (Tamiasciurus fremonti grahamensis). We tested the variation in cache size in response to microclimate, soil relief, vegetation, food availability and squirrel sex. The number of pits excavated by squirrels to cache cones was used as a proxy of cache size and was affected by mountain slope aspect and density of trees. More pits were excavated in the northeast facing slopes. The density of trees negatively affects the cache volume on southwest slopes, but not on northeast slopes. The sex of the resident squirrel also affects the number of pits in the squirrel midden, with males excavating 47% more pits than females. Males and females also presented different responses to the mountain slope aspect, with females excavating more pits on northeastern slopes than on southwestern slopes, whereas male cache size did not vary with the slope aspect. Finally, the squirrel's caching behavior did not vary in response to midden microclimate variation, a result with possible implications for the survival of the Mt Graham red squirrels, given the predicted temperature increases in the region due to climate change.
| S-EPMC6850554 | biostudies-literature
Project description:While the number of mammalian genome assemblies has proliferated, Y-chromosome assemblies have lagged behind. This discrepancy is caused by biological features of the Y-chromosome, such as its high repeat content, that present challenges to assembly with short-read, next-generation sequencing technologies. Partial Y-chromosome assemblies have been developed for the cat (Feliscatus), dog (Canislupusfamiliaris), and grey wolf (Canislupuslupus), providing the opportunity to examine the red fox (Vulpesvulpes) Y-chromosome in the context of closely related species. Here we present a data-driven approach to identifying Y-chromosome sequence among the scaffolds that comprise the short-read assembled red fox genome. First, scaffolds containing genes found on the Y-chromosomes of cats, dogs, and wolves were identified. Next, analysis of the resequenced genomes of 15 male and 15 female foxes revealed scaffolds containing male-specific k-mers and patterns of inter-sex copy number variation consistent with the heterogametic chromosome. Analyzing variation across these two metrics revealed 171 scaffolds containing 3.37 Mbp of putative Y-chromosome sequence. The gene content of these scaffolds is consistent overall with that of the Y-chromosome in other carnivore species, though the red fox Y-chromosome carries more copies of BCORY2 and UBE1Y than has been reported in related species and fewer copies of SRY than in other canids. The assignment of these scaffolds to the Y-chromosome serves to further characterize the content of the red fox draft genome while providing resources for future analyses of canid Y-chromosome evolution.
| S-EPMC6627929 | biostudies-literature