Movement patterns, home range and den site selection of urban red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) on Prince Edward Island, Canada
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
The opportunistic and adaptable nature of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in terms of habitat, diet and movement patterns, has contributed to their vast success in urban areas worldwide. Understanding the ecology and behaviour of urban wildlife, in particular carnivore species, is becoming increasingly important for reasons pertaining to management strategies, human-wildlife conflict prevention and wildlife health. On Prince Edward Island (hereafter PEI), foxes successfully colonized urban areas shortly after the establishment of eastern coyote (Canis latrans) populations in the 1980’s, as an effort to avoid competition and conflict with the larger canid. The main objective of this thesis was to investigate key ecological indicators such as den site selection, home range size, habitat selection and movement patterns within Charlottetown in order to discern potential anthropogenic effects on the species.\nCitizen science in combination with physical surveys was used over two years to locate and record measurements of fox den-sites within Charlottetown. In addition, logistic regression modelling was used to examine potentials relationships between environmental variables (land use type, distance to roads) and den site locations in order to identify factors associated with the occurrence of den sites within Charlottetown. Over 124 den site locations were recorded over the study period with mean distance to the nearest road found to be 95.9 ± SD 77.1 m. Den analysis results also indicated that the odds of finding a fox den within this urban landscape increased by 4-6 times in areas with minimal human disturbance.\nHabitat selection and home range size were investigated through GPS-collared individuals (2 male, 4 females) over three seasons (summer, fall, winter). Results of minimum convex polygon analysis indicated that the home range sizes of Charlottetown’s foxes were similar to those found in rural areas and larger than those of foxes existing in other urban areas. Differences in the home range sizes of foxes in this study may be due to the availability and accessibility of resources within the urban matrix as well as seasonal challenges such as snow cover. Habitat selection results indicate that foxes in Charlottetown prefer to spend their time in land-use types that are less-disturbed by humans such as natural lands, agricultural areas and regions of low human use, further suggesting that these areas may provide a greater abundance of resources such as food, space and vegetative cover.\nMovement data was also obtained from GPS-collared individuals and compared with theoretical predications in order to investigate the foraging behaviour of foxes in Charlottetown and how potential confinement effects, associated with the increased fragmentation of urban landscapes may affect movement patterns. Correlated random walk models were used as our null hypothesis for fox movement features of six foxes over three seasons (fall, winter, summer). Metrics examined included: net-squared displacements, turning angles, move length distributions and cluster detection. Our results indicated that despite the patchiness of urban environments such as Charlottetown, foxes are not demonstrating directional persistence that is associated with correlated random walks, but more random-like movement patterns. This could be due to an abundance of both natural and anthropogenic resources. The movement of foxes in this study also suggests that movement patterns may differ based on season as resource availability and accessibility may alter foraging patterns associated with snow cover and lower overall ecosystem productivity during the fall and winter.
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction distillée sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Apprise à partir de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Gemma. Le mode candidate est l'union des têtes enseignantes seuillées; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont ni des étiquettes humaines ni des étiquettes directes de modèles de pointe.
Scores Codex et Gemma par catégorie
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Communication savante | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Science ouverte | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,012 | 0,000 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule tête enseignante, pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».