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Am Nat

Title:		Movement responses of caribou to human-induced habitat edges lead to their aggregation near anthropogenic features
Author(s):		Fortin D; Buono PL; Fortin A; Courbin N; Tye Gingras C; Moorcroft PR; Courtois R; Dussault C;
Address:		"Chaire de Recherche Industrielle, Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en genie du Canada (CRSNG)-Universite Laval en Sylviculture et Faune, Departement de Biologie, Universite Laval, Quebec, Quebec G1V 0A6 Canada. daniel.fortin@bio.ulaval.ca"
Journal Title:		Am Nat
Year:		2013
Volume:		20130412
Issue:		6
Page Number:		827 - 836
DOI:		10.1086/670243
ISSN/ISBN:		1537-5323 (Electronic) 0003-0147 (Linking)
Abstract:		"The assessment of disturbance effects on wildlife and resulting mitigation efforts are founded on edge-effect theory. According to the classical view, the abundance of animals affected by human disturbance should increase monotonically with distance from disturbed areas to reach a maximum at remote locations. Here we show that distance-dependent movement taxis can skew abundance distributions toward disturbed areas. We develop an advection-diffusion model based on basic movement behavior commonly observed in animal populations and parameterize the model from observations on radio-collared caribou in a boreal ecosystem. The model predicts maximum abundance at 3.7 km from cutovers and roads. Consistently, aerial surveys conducted over 161,920 km(2) showed that the relative probability of caribou occurrence displays nonmonotonic changes with the distance to anthropogenic features, with a peak occurring at 4.5 km away from these features. This aggregation near disturbed areas thus provides the predators of this top-down-controlled, threatened herbivore species with specific locations to concentrate their search. The edge-effect theory developed here thus predicts that human activities should alter animal distribution and food web properties differently than anticipated from the current paradigm. Consideration of such nonmonotonic response to habitat edges may become essential to successful wildlife conservation"
Keywords:		"*Animal Distribution Animals *Ecosystem Female Geographic Information Systems Humans *Models, Biological Models, Statistical Quebec Reindeer/*psychology Trees;"
Notes:		"MedlineFortin, Daniel Buono, Pietro-Luciano Fortin, Andre Courbin, Nicolas Tye Gingras, Christian Moorcroft, Paul R Courtois, Rehaume Dussault, Claude eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2013/05/15 Am Nat. 2013 Jun; 181(6):827-36. doi: 10.1086/670243. Epub 2013 Apr 12"