When to slow down: elk residency rates on a heterogeneous landscape

Abstract

It remains unclear if patterns of habitat use are driven by animals moving to and increasing residency time in selected areas, or by animals simply returning frequently to selected areas. We studied a population of North American elk (Cervus elaphus) in the Chequamegon National Forest, Wisconsin, to examine how spatial and temporal factors influence residency time in localized areas. We used global positioning system telemetry data from 7 elk and addressed 2 questions. First, does residency time vary as a function of spatial and temporal factors and if so does that relationship vary with measurement scale? Second, can residency time in the summer be predicted by a resource-selection map previously constructed for this population? Cross validation demonstrated that the statistical models had very poor predictive strength of independent data, which indicates that the explanatory variables have very little influence on elk residency time.

Citation

Anderson, Dean P.; Forester, James D.; Turner, Monica G. 2008. When to slow down: elk residency rates on a heterogeneous landscape. Journal of Mammalogy. 89(1): 105-114.