Personality traits, sex and food abundance shape space use in an arboreal mammal.

ABSTRACT: Animal space use is affected by spatio-temporal variation in food availability and/or population density and varies among individuals. This inter-individual variation in spacing behaviour can be further influenced by sex, body condition, social dominance, and by the animal's personality. We used capture-mark-recapture and radio-tracking to examine the relationship between space use and personality in Eurasian red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in three conifer forests in the Italian Alps. We further explored to what extent this was influenced by changes in food abundance and/or population density. Measures of an individual's trappability and trap diversity had high repeatability and were used in a Principal Component Analysis to obtain a single personality score representing a boldness-explo

SUBMITTER: Wauters LA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8139925 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature