Life-history attributes and resource dynamics determine intraspecific home-range sizes in Carnivora

Abstract

Home ranges capture a fundamental aspect of animal ecology, resulting from interactions between metabolic demands and resource availability. Yet, the understanding of their emergence is currently limited by lack of consideration of the covariation between intrinsic and extrinsic drivers. We analysed intraspecific home-range size (HRS) variation with respect to life histories and remotely sensed proxies of resource dynamics for 21 Carnivora species. Our best model explained over half of the observed variability in intraspecific HRS across populations of multiple species. At the species level, median HRS was smaller for omnivorous species and increased with increasing body mass (model R2 = 0.66). Here, HRS scaled with body mass at 0.80, a value much closer to the expected allometric scaling of 0.75 than previously reported. At the intraspecific level, while much variation was driven by intrinsic factors (body mass, diet, social organization and sex; R2 = 0.39), inclusion of spatiotemporal variation in extrinsic factors (average resource availability and seasonality) enabled explanation of a further 13% of observed variability in HRS. We found no evidence for interactions between intrinsic and extrinsic HRS drivers, suggesting a generally ubiquitous influence of resource availability on space-use. Our findings illustrate how spatial and temporal information on resource dynamics as derived by satellite data can significantly improve our understanding of HRS variation at the interspecific and intraspecific levels, and urge caution in interpreting HRS allometry in the face of large intraspecific variation. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of considering life-history constraints in modelling intraspecific space-use and HRS. Body mass, carnivore, home range, NDVI, resource availability, space-use