Habitat selection of white-tailed deer fawns and their dams in the Northern Great Plains
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Habitat selection of white-tailed deer fawns and their dams in the Northern Great Plains Eric S. Michel 1,2 & Bailey S. Gullikson 1 & Katherine L. Brackel 1 & Brian A. Schaffer 3 & Jonathan A. Jenks 1 & William F. Jensen 3 Received: 10 September 2019 / Accepted: 23 June 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Habitat availability can affect important life-history traits such as survival; however, little information exists on how microhabitat characteristics found at parturition sites selected by dams and bed sites selected by their offspring differ from the surrounding area and from each other. Therefore, we assessed how vegetation affected maternal parturition and offspring bed site selection for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Northern Great Plains. Dams selected for sites with decreased vegetation height, potentially improving their visibility, which may increase their ability to escape approaching predators. Conversely, there was no variation between vegetative characteristics at neonate bed sites and their associated random sites, indicating grasslands provide adequate concealment for neonates. Dams possess the ability to flee from approaching predators, thus increasing the importance of visibility while giving birth. Conversely, neonates depend on fear bradycardia as their main antipredator defense, so concealment is more important. Our results suggest that vegetation structure is an important characteristic to white-tailed deer as habitat needs vary between adults and neonates. Keywords Bed site selection . Northern Great Plains . Odocoileus virginianus . Parturition site selection . Vegetative structure
Introduction Habitat availability influences important life-history characteristics such as survival. For example, elk (Cervus canadensis) experienced increased mortality from wolves (Canis lupus) when using pine forests compared with
Communicated by: Dries Kuijper Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-020-00519-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Eric S. Michel [email protected] 1
Department of Natural Resource Management, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA
2
Present address: Division of Fish and Wildlife, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Farmland and Wildlife Populations Research Group, 35365 800th Avenue, Madelia, MN 56062, USA
3
North Dakota Game and Fish Department, Bismarck, ND 58501, USA
grasslands (Hebblewhite et al. 2005) whereas resident elk decreased wolf predation risk by consuming forage located near human activity (Hebblewhite and Merrill 2009). Ciuti et al. (2014) reported mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) neonate survival decreased as habitat fragmentation increased in the presence of high coyote (Canis latrans) populations. In contrast, elk, moose (Alces americanus), and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) avoided direct predation risk by not selecting resources in areas that posed greater predation risk (Kitt
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