Digging into the behaviour of an active hunting predator: arctic fox prey caching events revealed by accelerometry.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Biologging 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

SUBMITTER: Clermont J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8626921 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature