Social environment shapes female settlement decisions in a solitary carnivore.

ABSTRACT: How and where a female selects an area to settle and breed is of central importance in dispersal and population ecology as it governs range expansion and gene flow. Social structure and organization have been shown to influence settlement decisions, but its importance in the settlement of large, solitary mammals is largely unknown. We investigate how the identity of overlapping conspecifics on the landscape, acquired during the maternal care period, influences the selection of settlement home ranges in a non-territorial, solitary mammal using location data of 56 female brown bears (Ursus arctos). We used a resource selection function to determine whether females' settlement behavior was influenced by the presence of their mother, related females, familiar females, and female populat

SUBMITTER: Hansen JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8857934 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan-Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature