Resource dispersion and relatedness interact to explain space use in a solitary predator

Malin Aronsson,Jens Persson,Matthew Low,Henrik Andrén,Mikael Åkesson

doi:10.1111/oik.07258

Abstract

Resource dispersion or kin selection are commonly used to explain animal spatial and social organization. Despite this, studies examining how these factors interact in wild populations of solitary animals are rare. We used 16 years of individual‐level spatial and genetic data to disentangle how resources and relatedness influence spatial organization of a solitary predator, the Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx. As expected, space‐use overlap between neighbouring individuals increased when food resources were heterogeneous and unpredictably distributed (as predicted from resource dispersion) or when neighbours were closely related (as predicted from kin selection). However, these patterns were highly dependent on each other. Increased spatial overlap was restricted to mother–daughter dyads, with this effect only occurring in areas and during seasons when prey was clumped and irregularly distributed in the landscape. Additionally, full‐siblings with similar levels of genetic relatedness did not show these patterns, suggesting that kin selection is mediated through mother–daughter recognition, and is only beneficial under specific resource dispersion circumstances. Our results provide key insights into the flexibility of spatial organization of solitary animals, and clearly show the importance of considering the interaction between resources and kinship when assessing animal space use patterns.

Highlights

Animal spatial organization results from a combination of resource utilization patterns and cost–benefit decisions governing individual interactions (Maher and Lott 2000)
By simultaneously considering the influence of both prey resources and relatedness, we were able to show that their interaction influence lynx spatial organization
We found that both space-use overlap and interaction between mothers and daughters increased when prey resources were unpredictable and highly clumped in time and space

Summary

Introduction

Animal spatial organization results from a combination of resource utilization patterns and cost–benefit decisions governing individual interactions (Maher and Lott 2000). The cost of competition can be offset by inclusive fitness benefits of sharing resources with close kin (Hamilton 1964, Reyer 1984, Parker et al 2002) While both resource dispersion and kin selection have been used extensively to explain population structure and spatial dynamics in animals (Hamilton 1964, Macdonald 1983, Pen and Weissing 2000, Johnson et al 2002, Bourke 2014, Macdonald and Johnson 2015), studies have generally not examined how these two major drivers of spatial organization interact in wild populations (but see Griesser and Nystrand 2009, Banks et al 2011). Since these benefits can be environmentally mediated (Banks et al 2011), resource dispersion and relatedness should be examined together in order to account for possible interactive effects

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