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Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes
Invasive and over-abundant predators pose a major threat to biodiversity and often benefit from human activities. Effective management requires understanding predator use of human-modified habitats (including resource subsidies and disturbed environments), and individual variation within populations...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5612948/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28947832 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12464-7 |
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author | Hradsky, Bronwyn A. Robley, Alan Alexander, Ray Ritchie, Euan G. York, Alan Di Stefano, Julian |
author_facet | Hradsky, Bronwyn A. Robley, Alan Alexander, Ray Ritchie, Euan G. York, Alan Di Stefano, Julian |
author_sort | Hradsky, Bronwyn A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Invasive and over-abundant predators pose a major threat to biodiversity and often benefit from human activities. Effective management requires understanding predator use of human-modified habitats (including resource subsidies and disturbed environments), and individual variation within populations. We investigated selection for human-modified habitats by invasive red foxes, Vulpes vulpes, within two predominantly forested Australian landscapes. We predicted that foxes would select for human-modified habitats in their range locations and fine-scale movements, but that selection would vary between individuals. We GPS-tracked 19 foxes for 17–166 days; ranges covered 33 to >2500 ha. Approximately half the foxes selected for human-modified habitats at the range scale, with some ‘commuting’ more than five kilometres to farmland or townships at night. Two foxes used burnt forest intensively after a prescribed fire. In their fine-scale nocturnal movements, most foxes selected for human-modified habitats such as reservoirs, forest edges and roads, but there was considerable individual variation. Native fauna in fragmented and disturbed habitats are likely to be exposed to high rates of fox predation, and anthropogenic food resources may subsidise fox populations within the forest interior. Coordinating fox control across land-tenures, targeting specific landscape features, and limiting fox access to anthropogenic resources will be important for biodiversity conservation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5612948 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-56129482017-10-11 Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes Hradsky, Bronwyn A. Robley, Alan Alexander, Ray Ritchie, Euan G. York, Alan Di Stefano, Julian Sci Rep Article Invasive and over-abundant predators pose a major threat to biodiversity and often benefit from human activities. Effective management requires understanding predator use of human-modified habitats (including resource subsidies and disturbed environments), and individual variation within populations. We investigated selection for human-modified habitats by invasive red foxes, Vulpes vulpes, within two predominantly forested Australian landscapes. We predicted that foxes would select for human-modified habitats in their range locations and fine-scale movements, but that selection would vary between individuals. We GPS-tracked 19 foxes for 17–166 days; ranges covered 33 to >2500 ha. Approximately half the foxes selected for human-modified habitats at the range scale, with some ‘commuting’ more than five kilometres to farmland or townships at night. Two foxes used burnt forest intensively after a prescribed fire. In their fine-scale nocturnal movements, most foxes selected for human-modified habitats such as reservoirs, forest edges and roads, but there was considerable individual variation. Native fauna in fragmented and disturbed habitats are likely to be exposed to high rates of fox predation, and anthropogenic food resources may subsidise fox populations within the forest interior. Coordinating fox control across land-tenures, targeting specific landscape features, and limiting fox access to anthropogenic resources will be important for biodiversity conservation. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-09-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5612948/ /pubmed/28947832 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12464-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Hradsky, Bronwyn A. Robley, Alan Alexander, Ray Ritchie, Euan G. York, Alan Di Stefano, Julian Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes |
title | Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes |
title_full | Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes |
title_fullStr | Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes |
title_full_unstemmed | Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes |
title_short | Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes |
title_sort | human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, vulpes vulpes |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5612948/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28947832 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12464-7 |
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