Abstract
Maintaining homeothermy is essential for mammals, but has considerable energetic costs. In this study, we monitored the internal conditions of setts within five European badger (Meles meles) social groups during the cub-rearing season, that is, February to July, in 2004. Sett temperature showed substantial and significant variation over this period, while relative humidity remained stable throughout. Microclimate was least stable during the period for which cubs remain entirely below ground between February and April; however here the instrumented main sett demonstrated a much warmer and more stable temperature regime than did nearby subsidiary outliers. We thus postulate that the energy budget of reproducing females could be affected by even small temperature fluctuations, militating for optimal sett choice. For comparison we also report microclimatic data from two artificial setts and found them to be markedly inferior in terms of thermal insulative properties, suggesting that man-made setts may need more careful consideration in both thermal and spatial setts network in each territory to adequately compensate the loss (e.g., destruction due to development) of a natural sett, especially as a breeding den.
Highlights
IntroductionFactors determining den location and suitability could be significant in highly fossorial species, such as the European badger Meles meles
From the 3 occupied setts surveyed in June and July 2003, with four trials in each sett (Figure 2; Table 1), we established a mean sett entrance temperature (SET) of 16.3 ± 1.2◦C (SD) (n = 12 range; 13.4–17.8◦C), significantly lower than external ambient temperature (EAT), which averaged 18.7 ± 0.8◦C (SD) (n = 12; range 17.9–19.6◦C)
In the two artificial setts, daily CIST fluctuated in parallel with external ambient temperature” (EAT)
Summary
Factors determining den location and suitability could be significant in highly fossorial species, such as the European badger Meles meles. (to include close Asian relatives with a similar biology; see [11]) are unusual amongst mustelids in particular, and carnivores in general, in that in some regions they form stable social groups of mixed age and sex whose members share a territory and occupy a communal diurnal resting den, termed a “sett” [12,13,14]. Despite living in groups under certain resource conditions [16], badgers are solitary foragers that show a high degree of behavioural plasticity, adapting their social and spatial organisation in response to differences in the environment and changes in food availability (reviewed in [17, 18]). The distribution of badger setts is determined by the availability of specific environmental resources, such as underlying geology, soil type, vegetation cover, land use, and the impact of human activity [19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26]
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