Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States; Chaire de recherche industrielle CRSNG-Université Laval en sylviculture et faune, Département de biologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, UMR 5558, Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, Villeurbanne, France; Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway; Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Centre for African Ecology, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits, South Africa; Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway; Vitenskapsmuseet, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Basille, M., Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States, Chaire de recherche industrielle CRSNG-Université Laval en sylviculture et faune, Département de biologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; Van Moorter, B., Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, UMR 5558, Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, Villeurbanne, France, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway; Herfindal, I., Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Martin, J., Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, UMR 5558, Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, Villeurbanne, France, Centre for African Ecology, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits, South Africa; Linnell, J.D.C., Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway; Odden, J., Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway; Andersen, R., Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway, Vitenskapsmuseet, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Gaillard, J.-M., Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, UMR 5558, Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, Villeurbanne, France
Habitat selection studies generally assume that animals select habitat and food resources at multiple scales to maximise their fitness. However, animals sometimes prefer habitats of apparently low quality, especially when considering the costs associated with spatially heterogeneous human disturbance. We used spatial variation in human disturbance, and its consequences on lynx survival, a direct fitness component, to test the Hierarchical Habitat Selection hypothesis from a population of Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx in southern Norway. Data from 46 lynx monitored with telemetry indicated that a high proportion of forest strongly reduced the risk of mortality from legal hunting at the home range scale, while increasing road density strongly increased such risk at the finer scale within the home range. We found hierarchical effects of the impact of human disturbance, with a higher road density at a large scale reinforcing its negative impact at a fine scale. Conversely, we demonstrated that lynx shifted their habitat selection to avoid areas with the highest road densities within their home ranges, thus supporting a compensatory mechanism at fine scale enabling lynx to mitigate the impact of large-scale disturbance. Human impact, positively associated with high road accessibility, was thus a stronger driver of lynx space use at a finer scale, with home range characteristics nevertheless constraining habitat selection. Our study demonstrates the truly hierarchical nature of habitat selection, which aims at maximising fitness by selecting against limiting factors at multiple spatial scales, and indicates that scale-specific heterogeneity of the environment is driving individual spatial behaviour, by means of trade-offs across spatial scales. © 2013 Basille et al.
