Identifying Space Use at Foraging Arena Scale within the Home Ranges of Large Herbivores.

ABSTRACT: An intermediate spatiotemporal scale of food procurement by large herbivores is evident within annual or seasonal home ranges. It takes the form of settlement periods spanning several days or weeks during which foraging activity is confined to spatially discrete foraging arenas, separated by roaming interludes. Extended by areas occupied for other activities, these foraging arenas contribute towards generating the home range structure. We delineated and compared the foraging arenas exploited by two African large herbivores, sable antelope (a ruminant) and plains zebra (a non-ruminant), using GPS-derived movement data. We developed a novel approach to specifically delineate foraging arenas based on local change points in distance relative to adjoining clusters of locations, and compared its

SUBMITTER: Owen-Smith N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4466150 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature