Abstract
Female white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are thought to choose between two behavioral strategies to maximize the quality of potential mates: sit and wait, characterized by concentrating activity within a restricted area, and excursive behavior, characterized by increased activity and excursions outside the home range. As movement patterns may influence conception, our goal was to examine the patterns of female white‐tailed deer movements to evaluate which breeding strategy was employed. We equipped 36 female white‐tailed deer with GPS collars from August 2013 to December 2015. We found that movement rate and probability of activity were greatest near the peak of the breeding season, and we observed increases in both metrics during the 40 days prior to estimated conception. Peak size of home range and core area occurred in the days surrounding conception. We found that 11 deer performed an excursion, ranging from 43 days before until 36 days after conception, with the peak probability of being outside of an individual home range occurring 1 day prior to conception. Our results suggest that female white‐tailed deer may attempt to maximize the quality of their mates by advertising availability for breeding through excursive behaviors just prior to entering estrus.
Highlights
We evaluated six spatial metrics that we hypothesized could be impacted by breeding-related activity
Our results suggest that adjustments in female behavior and space use appear to be closely linked to conception
When examining the spatial metrics relative to breeding stages, an increase in movement rate and probability of activity from prerut to rut suggests that females were actively advertising their presence during the breeding season (D’Angelo et al, 2004; Labisky & Fritzen, 1998; Sawyer, 1981)
Summary
The first strategy, known as “sit and wait,” has been observed near the peak of the breeding season and is characterized by a decrease in movement rate and range size, and an increase in core area use (Beier & McCullough, 1990; Holzenbein & Schwede, 1989; Ivey & Causey, 1981). Each study that has previously documented the movement patterns of free-ranging female white-tailed deer during the breeding season has performed so only at the broad scale of population breeding stages
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