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Wildlife Ecology
Updated 26August 2009
Bolen and Robinson (2003) - Ch. 6 -- Animal Behavior and Wildlife Management
ethology - is the study of animal behavior with primary emphasis on inherent behavior in natural
situations
Konrad Lorenz (imprinting in birds, other things)
Niko Tinbergen (herring gulls, stickleback fish, birds)
Karl von Frisch (bee waggle dance)
(the 3 above guys received Nobel Prize in 1973)
- Lorenz is sometimes called the "Father of Ethology"
psychology - main emphasis is on learned behavior and the learning process;
understanding of human behavior as its ultimate goal
seeks an
mammals - more adaptable to new situations than birds; mammals have more complex brains than
other vertebrates
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Habitat Selection - mostly innate behavior
- read about examples
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Courtship Behavior - is often highly ritualized (permits species to recognize their own kind)
- geographical isolation of mallards and black ducks before complete reproductive isolation resulted in hybridization later on when the 2 species came into contact
- annual birds counts - often use males singing in spring
- peenting in woodcocks
- whistling in bobwhites
- crowing in ring-necked pheasants
- drumming in ruffed grouse
- gobbling in turkeys
- mammals - squirrel "barking"
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Reproductive Physiology and Behavior - reproduction has a sequential pattern involving:
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- photoperiod (relative length of dark/light
- weather
- endocrine glands
- behavior of members of opposite sex
- animals often cannot breed in captivity
- in the wild, usually there is no breeding in those animals that do not have a territory, adequate
food, or habitat
- renesting - some birds will make another nest if their first nest is destroyed (depends on how far
the breeding season has progressed; if it is too late in the year, renesting does not usually occur)
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Territorial Behavior - territory - is the defended portion of the home range
- home range - an area in which an animal conducts its daily activities (home ranges may overlap,
but territories seldom do except in cases of group territories like in wolf packs)
- territory is often marked or communicated to others by combination of (depending on the species):
- visual displays
- threats
- sounds, calls
- scent (urine, feces, secretions from scent glands)
- fighting is usually the last resort in territorial disputes, and it is usually ritualized (which
minimizes damage animals can do to each other)
- lek - communal displaying (dancing) grounds, usually in open grasslands; males display for the
females and females choose who to breed with; often just a few males with choice territories
within lek do most of the breeding
- species that have leks:
- sharp-tailed grouse
- prairie chickens
- sage grouse
- black grouse
- diving ducks - have a moving territory around the mate; the male defends the female
- dabbling ducks - they defend a portion of the water
- when animals are in their territories, they are familiar with the area - food, escape routes, etc. -saves energy
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- space available for territories might limit the size of a breeding population
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territory size often shrinks during years of plentiful resources
Sexual Segregation
Many species are sexually dimorphic (males and females look different from each other)
In some sexually dimorphic species, each sex also tends to occupy separate habitats during much of
the year, although the reasons for this form of segregation are not always clear
Mountain sheep – predators might influence habitats selected—females and lambs (more
vulnerable than males) tend to occupy steep slopes where food is of lower quality, but fewer
predators exist
Circadian Rhythms - refers to activities of animals
that show a regular pattern occurring every 24 hours
- as a researcher, you need to know active times of the animal in order to count them, collect data,
etc.
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Dispersal - animals leave home range (usually upon or before reaching sexual maturity)
- dispersing animals are susceptible to predation, dangers
- effects of dispersal:
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genetic variability is maintained
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depleted areas are repopulated
3.
species spread into suitable habitats as they become available
- many barriers to dispersal
- island biogeography - see old notes
Responses of Wildlife to Humans - bald eagles - flee from humans; nesting success is less where humans are around
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- bighorn sheep - avoided construction areas on water pipelines
- habituation to humans - e.g., bears, birds at feeders
- read examples
Imprinting and Parental Behavior - imprinting - permanent learning that takes place in a relatively brief sensitive period, usually
early in life
- ducklings - become attached to the first object that moves nearby - they fixed upon moving object
as the "mother figure"; messed up their breeding later (they chose mother figure to breed with)
- mothers may imprint on young
- goats lick their kid and smell them; otherwise, they reject the kid if not done in the first
hour
- whooping cranes in captivity - imprint on humans; so they are careful when they feed them
(humans dress up in crane outfits)
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Migration - moving from one spatial unit to another
- is a periodic phenomenon involving a round trip
- e.g., birds, some bats, butterflies, salmon
- elk, birds - might have altitudinal migration
- flyways - know
- homing - some animals migrate to the same place year after year
- sea turtles migrate
- many species of snakes (e.g., rattlesnakes) migrate seasonally between winter hibernacula and
their breeding and foraging areas
- migrating mammals - whales, porpoises, seals, sea lions, large hooved herbivores, lemmings
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invertebrates – monarch butterflies – there are essentially 2 populations – one west of the
Rockies(smaller population) – they winter at several sites along the California coastline.
The other population lies east of the Rockies (big population) and winters in cool, fogbound mountains just north of Mexico City – they all gather into a small 65-km2 area and
spend the winter clumped on the branches of oyamel fir trees – there are problems because
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this is a commercially valuable tree, and although protected, some logging goes on -- when
even a few trees are taken out, it opens the canopy, heat escapes, monarchs are exposed to
excess moisture during winter storms, and large numbers freeze - they are working to
preserve 5 key areas
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invertebrates – horseshoe crabs – in 2001, the National Marine Fisheries Service banned
the harvest of horseshoe crabs in a new, 3884km2 sanctuary lying about 5 miles off the
coast of Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey
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blood from horseshoe crabs (not a true crab, but related to spiders and scorpions) has been
used to test the purity of pharmaceuticals (bled and released)
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horseshoe crabs also used for bait for commercial fishing
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migrating birds along the coast eat horseshoe crab eggs, so having many horseshoe crabs
around is necessary
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Managing Migratory Animals - Migratory Bird Treaty (International) - 1916
- Migratory Bird Treaty Act - 1918
- in 1987, US joined Ramsar Convention (held in Ramsar, Iran)- entire name of convention is
“Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, Especially as Waterfowl Habitat”
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here, waterfowl refers to ducks, geese, shorebirds, and all other birds that need wetlands
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today, there are about 130 nations that have signed the treaty
- in 1987, an international agreements was signed for the protection and management of 180,000
caribou migrating in the region of the Porcupine River (called the Porcupine Herd)
between the Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada and the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge in Alaska (issues of concern are subsistence hunting, but more importantly, the US
proposal to open the refuge to gas and oil development
Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 2000 – protects neotropical migrants that
overwinter in the Caribbean and Latin America
- International Whaling Commission (IWC) - supposed to stop whaling by 1986 - but some
countries still harvest, sometimes for "research purposes" (which are questionable)
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- IUCN - International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources - based
in Switzerland- has 438 member organizations in 103 countries - promotes conservation and
research
Too Many Geese
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lesser snow geese are now over 3 million in number—a 300% increase since 1969; good
agricultural areas (with food) in wintering grounds of Texas, Louisiana, and other places
along the Central Flyway; they are doing damage to the tundra breeding grounds
greater snow geese and Ross geese are also increasing – same reasons
see page 90 for control measures (they fear a large population crash will happen)