Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/32898
Appears in Collections:Biological and Environmental Sciences Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: African forest elephant movements depend on time scale and individual behavior
Author(s): Beirne, Christopher
Houslay, Thomas M
Morkel, Peter
Clark, Connie J
Fay, Mike
Okouyi, Joseph
White, Lee J T
Poulsen, John R
Keywords: Animal behaviour
Animal migration
Behavioural ecology
Conservation biology
Ecology
Tropical ecology
Issue Date: 2021
Date Deposited: 12-Jul-2021
Citation: Beirne C, Houslay TM, Morkel P, Clark CJ, Fay M, Okouyi J, White LJT & Poulsen JR (2021) African forest elephant movements depend on time scale and individual behavior. Scientific Reports, 11, Art. No.: 12634. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91627-z
Abstract: The critically endangered African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) plays a vital role in maintaining the structure and composition of Afrotropical forests, but basic information is lacking regarding the drivers of elephant movement and behavior at landscape scales. We use GPS location data from 96 individuals throughout Gabon to determine how five movement behaviors vary at different scales, how they are influenced by anthropogenic and environmental covariates, and to assess evidence for behavioral syndromes—elephants which share suites of similar movement traits. Elephants show some evidence of behavioral syndromes along an ‘idler’ to ‘explorer’ axis—individuals that move more have larger home ranges and engage in more ‘exploratory’ movements. However, within these groups, forest elephants express remarkable inter-individual variation in movement behaviours. This variation highlights that no two elephants are the same and creates challenges for practitioners aiming to design conservation initiatives.
DOI Link: 10.1038/s41598-021-91627-z
Rights: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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