Scale-Dependent Habitat Selection and Size-Based Dominance in Adult Male American Alligators.

ABSTRACT: Habitat selection is an active behavioral process that may vary across spatial and temporal scales. Animals choose an area of primary utilization (i.e., home range) then make decisions focused on resource needs within patches. Dominance may affect the spatial distribution of conspecifics and concomitant habitat selection. Size-dependent social dominance hierarchies have been documented in captive alligators, but evidence is lacking from wild populations. We studied habitat selection for adult male American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis; n = 17) on the Pearl River in central Mississippi, USA, to test whether habitat selection was scale-dependent and individual resource selectivity was a function of conspecific body size. We used K-select analysis to quantify selection at the home r

SUBMITTER: Strickland BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5010255 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature