首页 | 本学科首页   官方微博 | 高级检索  
   检索      


Humans shape the year‐round distribution and habitat use of an opportunistic scavenger
Authors:Francisco Ramírez  Isabel Afn  Willem Bouten  Josep Lluís Carrasco  Manuela Gonzlez Forero  Joan Navarro
Institution:Francisco Ramírez,Isabel Afán,Willem Bouten,Josep Lluís Carrasco,Manuela González Forero,Joan Navarro
Abstract:Research focused on evaluating how human food subsidies influence the foraging ecology of scavenger species is scarce but essential for elucidating their role in shaping behavioral patterns, population dynamics, and potential impacts on ecosystems. We evaluate the potential role of humans in shaping the year‐round distribution and habitat use of individuals from a typical scavenger species, the yellow‐legged gull (Larus michahellis), breeding at southwestern Spain. To do this, we combined long‐term, nearly continuous GPS‐tracking data with spatially explicit information on habitat types and distribution of human facilities, as proxied by satellite imagery of artificial night lights. Overall, individuals were mainly associated with freshwater habitats (mean proportion, 95% CI: 40.6%, 36.9%–44.4%) followed by the marine‐related systems (40.3, 37.7%–42.8%), human‐related habitats (13.5%, 13.2%–13.8%), and terrestrial systems (5.5%, 4.6%–6.5%). However, these relative contributions to the overall habitat usage largely changed throughout the annual cycle as a likely response to ecological/physiological constraints imposed by varying energy budgets and environmental constraints resulting from fluctuations in the availability of food resources. Moreover, the tight overlap between the year‐round spatial distribution of gulls and that of human facilities suggested that the different resources individuals relied on were likely of anthropogenic origin. We therefore provide evidence supporting the high dependence of this species on human‐related food resources throughout the annual cycle. Owing to the ability of individuals to disperse and reach transboundary areas of Spain, Portugal, or Morocco, international joint efforts aimed at restricting the availability of human food resources would be required to manage this overabundant species and the associated consequences for biodiversity conservation (e.g., competitive exclusion of co‐occurring species) and human interests (e.g., airports or disease transmission).
Keywords:artificial night lights  compositional analyses  GPS tracking  scavenger  southwestern Spain  yellow‐legged gull
设为首页 | 免责声明 | 关于勤云 | 加入收藏

Copyright©北京勤云科技发展有限公司  京ICP备09084417号