Abstract
Animals exploring a new environment develop cognitive maps using diverse sensory input and, thereby, gain information needed to establish home ranges. Experiencing, and learning information about, resources should be advantageous to the resident of a home range while lack of such information should put invaders into the home range at a disadvantage. Conspecifics, especially, should avoid the home ranges of one another to ensure that they do not experience reduced resource availability caused by resource depression or depletion. Yet, encountering conspecific competitors of different sexes may elicit responses that can lead to spacing on a landscape that has different costs and benefits on males and females. We tested the hypothesis that female fishers (Pekania pennanti) avoid competition from both males and female conspecifics whereas male fishers avoid competition only from other males. We reintroduced fishers onto our study site in the presence or absence of competitors’ home ranges during late 2009 through 2011. Using satellite transmitters (Argos) and land-based (VHF) telemetry, we monitored fishers and estimated their locations, movements and use of the surrounding landscape during their first 500 days after release. All fishers settled in relatively high-quality habitat but females that encountered the home ranges of conspecifics moved farther, explored larger areas, and settled farther from their release locations than did females that did not encounter a conspecific’s home range. Male fishers exhibited diverse responses upon encountering the home ranges of conspecifics. Thus, female fishers avoid conspecific competition from all fishers, but males tolerate, or impose, competition with females, apparently to increase mating opportunities. These observations are consistent with the movements and strategies of other solitary carnivores.
Highlights
When an animal moves through a new environment, it perceives the characteristics of that environment through its diverse senses and begins to develop a cognitive map of the new area (Heft, 2013; Eichenbaum, 2017)
We considered that a released fisher encountered the home range of a conspecific if we released that fisher within the 95% isopleth of the utilization distribution of a known fisher or if the released fisher encountered the 95% isopleth of a known fisher within 2 weeks of being released
We calculated our movement metrics for the 17 male and 40 female fishers born on Stirling that we captured their first times in 2011 through 2016. (Fishers captured in 2017 did not receive collars because we removed collars that year in anticipation of research termination.) Females and males averaged 215 and 271 locations per individual for our analysis
Summary
When an animal moves through a new environment, it perceives the characteristics of that environment through its diverse senses and begins to develop a cognitive map of the new area (Heft, 2013; Eichenbaum, 2017). As the animal establishes a home range, its cognitive map becomes more complex. The cognitive map is a multi-dimensional concept of not just the locations of resources. The cognitive map is not a Euclidean map as seen from above but a concept of an animal’s surroundings as seen from the animal’s present, or another target location (Heft, 2013). Understanding the development of the cognitive maps is critical for understanding home ranges and how animals learn about their environments (Powell, 2012; Powell and Mitchell, 2012)
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