Details zur Publikation

Kategorie Textpublikation
Referenztyp Zeitschriften
DOI 10.3390/ani9060291
Lizenz creative commons licence
Titel (primär) Does animal personality affect movement in habitat corridors? Experiments with common voles (Microtus arvalis) using different corridor widths
Autor Kowalski, G.J.; Grimm, V.; Herde, A.; Guenther, A.; Eccard, J.A.
Quelle Animals
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
Department OESA
Band/Volume 9
Heft 6
Seite von art. 291
Sprache englisch
Keywords activity; animal personality; wildlife corridors; habitat connectivity; individual differences; rodents
Abstract Animal personality may affect an animal’s mobility in a given landscape, influencing its propensity to take risks in an unknown environment. We investigated the mobility of translocated common voles in two corridor systems 60 m in length and differing in width (1 m and 3 m). Voles were behaviorally phenotyped in repeated open field and barrier tests. Observed behavioral traits were highly repeatable and described by a continuous personality score. Subsequently, animals were tracked via an automated very high frequency (VHF) telemetry radio tracking system to monitor their movement patterns in the corridor system. Although personality did not explain movement patterns, corridor width determined the amount of time spent in the habitat corridor. Voles in the narrow corridor system entered the corridor faster and spent less time in the corridor than animals in the wide corridor. Thus, landscape features seem to affect movement patterns more strongly than personality. Meanwhile, site characteristics, such as corridor width, could prove to be highly important when designing corridors for conservation, with narrow corridors facilitating faster movement through landscapes than wider corridors.
dauerhafte UFZ-Verlinkung https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=21892
Kowalski, G.J., Grimm, V., Herde, A., Guenther, A., Eccard, J.A. (2019):
Does animal personality affect movement in habitat corridors? Experiments with common voles (Microtus arvalis) using different corridor widths
Animals 9 (6), art. 291 10.3390/ani9060291