

- #Duckcapture remove frame region selection drivers#
- #Duckcapture remove frame region selection driver#
#Duckcapture remove frame region selection driver#
Land use-particularly agricultural-was a key driver of dispersal rates, distances, and paths in Wisconsin WTD. Lastly, we found that, during dispersal, juvenile males typically avoided agricultural land use but selected for areas near rivers and streams. Further, dispersal distances were positively associated with agricultural land use in potential dispersal paths but negatively associated with the number of proximate deer in the natal range. Dispersal distances were typically short (median 5.77 km, range: 1.3–68.3 km), especially in the fall. Juvenile male dispersal probability was positively associated with the proportion of the natal range that was classified as agricultural land use, but only during the spring. We then performed a step selection analysis to determine how landscape features such as agricultural land use, elevation, rivers, and roads affected deer dispersal paths.ĭispersal predominantly occurred in juvenile males, of which 64.2% dispersed, with dispersal events uncommon in other sex and age classes.

#Duckcapture remove frame region selection drivers#
We used statistical models to identify host and landscape drivers of dispersal rates and distances, including the role of agricultural land use, the traversability of the landscape, and potential interactions between deer. We developed an algorithmic approach to detect dispersal events from GPS collar data for 590 juvenile, yearling, and adult WTD. Our objectives were to (1) identify dispersal events in Wisconsin WTD and determine drivers of dispersal rates and distances, and (2) determine how landscape features (e.g., rivers, roads) structure deer dispersal paths.

Across their wide range, WTD dispersal is believed to be driven by a suite of landscape and host behavioral factors, but these can vary by region, season, and sex. In white-tailed deer (WTD Odocoileus virginianus), dispersal also presents an increasingly relevant risk for the spread of infectious diseases. Our approach for extending the NHPI hypothesis to behavior during EHRMs can be applied to a variety of taxa and can expand our understanding of how individual behavioral variation and early life experience may shape connectivity and resistance across landscapes.ĭispersal is a fundamental process to animal population dynamics and gene flow. Across seasons, selection for natal habitat similarity was generally weak during excursive movements, but strong during dispersals, indicating that NHPI is manifested in dispersal habitat selection in this study system and bolstering the hypothesis that excursive movements differ functionally from dispersal. We developed a workflow to measure multidimensional natal habitat dissimilarity for each EHRM relocation and fit step-selection functions to evaluate whether natal habitat similarity explained habitat selection along movement paths. We analyzed GPS collar relocation data collected during 79 EHRMs made by 34 juvenile and subadult white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) across an agricultural landscape with highly fragmented forests in Illinois, USA. While the study of NHPI is typically focused on post-settlement home ranges, we investigated how this behavior may manifest during extra-home range movements (EHRMs), both to identify exploratory prospecting behavior and assess how natal habitat cues may influence path selection before settlement. Natal habitat preference induction (NHPI) occurs when animals exhibit a preference for new habitat that is similar to that which they experienced in their natal environment, potentially leading to post-dispersal success.
