The relationship between habitat choice and lifetime reproductive success in female red deer |
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Authors: | L Conradt T H Clutton-Brock F E Guinness |
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Institution: | (1) LARG, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK e-mail: l.conradt@leeds.ac.uk, GB |
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Abstract: | In non-territorial species, individuals can move freely and should be distributed in an ideal free manner between habitats
and areas with respect to resources that influence lifetime reproductive success (LRS). Consequently, no relationship between
diet quality and LRS should be expected. However, there have been no attempts to test this prediction. The present paper investigates
the relationship between forage habitat use and LRS in red deer (Cervus elaphus) hinds within three neighbouring areas on the Isle of Rum which differed in their amounts of high-quality-forage habitat.
Within areas, hinds move widely and have access to the same resources. We found no correlation between LRS of individual hinds
and their use of high-quality-forage habitat (i.e. short Agrostis/Festuca grassland). Our analysis suggests that high hind densities on short Agrostis/Festuca grassland offset any advantages of increased access to preferred forage. These results support the hypothesis that red deer
hinds are distributed in an ideal free manner with respect to the use of high-quality-forage habitat. However, hinds rarely
leave areas where they are born, and the analysis suggests that constraints in changing areas hindered an ideal free distribution
on a larger spatial scale. Consequently, mean LRS was not the same within the three investigated areas: one area, with a low
amount of short Agrostis/Festuca grassland and a low hind density, contributed more male offspring (and more total offspring) per hind to the population than
the other two areas.
Received: 11 September 1998 / Accepted: 15 March 1999 |
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Keywords: | Foraging competition Grazing competition Habitat preferences Spatial distribution Ungulates |
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