From movement behaviour to space use in mountain ungulates

Factors determining where and how far an animal is going to move entail both intrinsic variables (such as, diet, age, and reproductive status) and external cues (e.g. climate, resource availability, predation risk), and their effect will be reflected at a ll spatial scales, from individual steps to annual home ranges. Understanding how animals respond to spatio-temporal variability in external conditions is imperative in order to anticipate the consequences of future changes in climate, land use, and speci es management. The aim of this project is, therefore, to use GPS data to examine movement behavior and habitat use of different mountain ungulates so as to improve our knowledge about the functional relationships between animals and their environment. Fir st, we will focus on three ruminant species inhabiting in the French Alps and will study the effect of their feeding style and social organization relative to other intrinsic and extrinsic variables on their spatial ecology. We will compare a solitary bro wser species (Roe Deer), a highly aggregated grazer (Mouflon), and intermediately aggregated mixed feeder (Chamois). Specifically we will determine which factors are causing the changes in the movement behavior (i.e. trajectory) of each species, and after wards, we will scale up to test if the same mechanisms are also explaining the intra and inter-specific variability at the home range level. Finally, we will investigate if the mechanistic relationships obtained in previous objectives can be generalized t o other mountain systems, by comparing the mixed feeder of the alpine area to another in an arctic area, that is, reindeer in Norway. Projects like this considering multiple species and systems are necessary to improve our understanding about mechanisms d riving species spatial behaviour, and thus, to make better predictions of how animals will respond to future alterations in climate and resource availability resulting from ongoing global changes.