Abstract
To elucidate genetic variability in vigilance behaviour for reindeer with historical differences in their interactions with predators and humans, we measured vigilance frequency and duration for grazing reindeer in Southern Norway (Rondane and Norefjell-Reinsjøfjell), Svalbard (Edgeøya and Nordenskiöld Land) and Barf/Royal Bay and Busen in the southern Hemisphere (South Georgia). Averaged for all areas, frequency and duration of vigilance bouts were less than 0.5 and 2.5 s, respectively. Frequency was insignificantly 1.3 times higher in Rondane than Edgeøya, and significantly 2.0, 3.5, 5.2 and 12.4 times higher than Norefjell, Nordenskiöld Land, Barf/Royal Bay and Busen, respectively. Duration per vigilance bout was not different amongst the areas. Thus, while frequency varied considerably, duration remained constant, supporting a hard-wired adaptation to, among other suggestions, an open landscape. Plasticity in frequency allows for flexible behavioral responses to environmental factors with predation, domestication and hunting key drivers for reindeer. Other factors include (1) the open, treeless alpine/Arctic environment inhabited by Rangifer subspecies allowing warning time, (2) grouping behaviour, (3) relative low density of predators and (4) the anatomy and physiology of ungulate vision.
Highlights
Behavioural traits in animals certainly evolve, and the domestication of animals was essential for the development of modern human societies
Using an island as a model, terrestrial prey become naïve to predation risk when predators have been absent for long periods (Byers 1997; Blumstein and Daniel 2005b)
Domestic reindeer introduced to the predator free South Georgia showed a low vigilance response
Summary
Behavioural traits in animals certainly evolve, and the domestication of animals was essential for the development of modern human societies. Man utilized this variability to select species that served their needs for protection and hunting (dogs), as well as a wide variety of food and clothing purposes. Selection towards domestication supported tameness for improved handling and maintenance of livestock (Price 1984), while pre-modern hunting likely selected for traits increasing a species survival abilities through increased fright, flight and vigilance behaviours. Knowledge about changes in behavioural traits related to wildness and tameness is lacking, often due to. While domestication tends to relax anti-predator behaviour, such as vigilance, predation tends to increase it (Reimers et al 2012). Over 100 s or 1000 s of years, prey may lose the ability to recognize
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