背景:运动将栖息地的分布与使用这些栖息地的动物的社会环境联系起来。尽管运动之间有联系,栖息地选择,和社会生态学,由于缺乏跨领域的共享词汇,它们的整合仍然是一个挑战,方法上的差距,以及社会和空间生态学领域理论的隐性(而不是显性)历史发展。鉴于这些挑战可以解决,进一步研究的机会将提供有关社会,空间,运动生态学。这里,我们的目标是解开栖息地选择和社会关联作为驯鹿(Rangifertarandus)运动驱动因素的作用。
方法:为了实现我们的目标,我们使用社会知情综合步骤选择函数(iSSF)对集体运动与觅食栖息地选择之间的关系进行了建模。使用iSSF,我们模拟了社会过程的影响,即,最近邻距离和社会偏好,和栖息地选择模式的运动行为。
结果:通过将社会网络分析与iSSF统一起来,我们确定了依赖于运动的社会联系,个体在地衣栖息地采取较短的步骤,并在更熟悉的个体附近觅食。
结论:我们的研究表明,基于栖息地选择和觅食行为,社会偏好取决于环境。因此,我们推测栖息地选择和社会联系是集体运动的驱动力,因此,运动是栖息地选择和社会联系之间的粘合剂。这里,我们将这些概念付诸实践,以证明运动是连接个体栖息地选择与社会环境的粘合剂。
BACKGROUND: Movement links the distribution of habitats with the social environment of animals using those habitats. Despite the links between movement, habitat selection, and socioecology, their integration remains a challenge due to lack of shared vocabulary across fields, methodological gaps, and the implicit (rather than explicit) historical development of theory in the fields of social and spatial ecology. Given these challenges can be addressed, opportunity for further study will provide insight about the links between social, spatial, and movement ecology. Here, our objective was to disentangle the roles of habitat selection and social association as drivers of movement in caribou (Rangifer tarandus).
METHODS: To accomplish our objective, we modelled the relationship between collective movement and selection of foraging habitats using socially informed integrated step selection function (iSSF). Using iSSF, we modelled the effect of social processes, i.e., nearest neighbour distance and social preference, and movement behaviour on patterns of habitat selection.
RESULTS: By unifying social network analysis with iSSF, we identified movement-dependent social association, where individuals took shorter steps in lichen habitat and foraged in close proximity to more familiar individuals.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that social preference is context-dependent based on habitat selection and foraging behaviour. We therefore surmise that habitat selection and social association are drivers of collective movement, such that movement is the glue between habitat selection and social association. Here, we put these concepts into practice to demonstrate that movement is the glue connecting individual habitat selection to the social environment.