IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Keim, J.L.; Dewitt, P.D.; Lele, S.R. | |
| Predators choose prey over prey habitats: evidence from a lynx-hare system | |
| 2011 Ecological Applications (21): 1011-1016 | |
Resource selection is grounded in the understanding that animals select resources based on fitness requirements. Despite uncertainty in how mechanisms relate to the landscape, resource selection studies often assume, but rarely demonstrate, a relationship between modeled variables and fitness mechanisms. Using Canada lynx (_Lynx canadensis_) and snowshoe hare (_Lepus americanus_) as a model system, we assess whether prey habitat is a viable surrogate for encounters between predators and prey. We simultaneously collected winter track data for lynx and hare in two study areas. We used information criteria to determine whether selection by lynx is best characterized by a hare resource selection probability function (RSPF) or by the amount of hare resource use. Results show that lynx selection is better explained by the amount of hare use (SIC ¬21.9; Schwarz's Information Criterion) than by hare RSPF (SIC ¬16.71), and that hare RSPF cannot be assumed to reveal the amount of resource use, a primary mechanism of predator selection. Our study reveals an obvious but important distinction between selection and use that is applicable to all resource selection studies. We recommend that resource selection studies be coupled with mechanistic data (e.g., metrics of diet, forage, fitness, or abundance) when investigating mechanisms of resource selection. |
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