Pattern of repeatability in the movement behaviour of a long‐lived territorial species, the eagle owl

Abstract

AbstractObserved movement patterns are the response of the interaction between environmental variables and the animal internal state. Therefore, even individuals of the same species experiencing similar environmental conditions can exhibit different behavioural responses, as these responses can be highly repeatable within individuals. Here, we investigated the nocturnal movement behaviour of a territorial species, by radiotracking 26 eagle owls Bubo bubo in order to analyze within and between individual variation with respect to movement parameters and route choice. Owls showed a considerable individual consistency in all movement parameters and made repeated use of similar routes while moving within fixed home ranges. Thus, movement parameters varied much less between repeated nightly trajectories than between different individuals. Furthermore, when we compared different individuals inhabiting the same territory in different years, within‐group repeatability was low or non‐significant suggesting that the spatial configuration of habitat does not always represents one of the main drivers in animal movement behaviour. Similarly, male individuals appeared to exhibit greater repeatability than females. The overall pattern of repeatability we found seems to identify such consistent movement behaviour not only as the expression of individual response to external/internal inputs but also as an additional trait to include in the broad definition of animal personality.