Individual movements drive community-level space and resource use across Yellowstone ungulates.
Caldwell MR, Geremia C, Stahler DR, MacNulty DR, Smith DW
Phenology
The grasses and wildflowers in Yellowstone's meadows are shaped not just by climate but by whether individual elk or bison happen to wander widely or stick to a home patch — a reminder that the diversity of plant communities in any landscape depends on the behavioral quirks of the animals grazing them.
Scientists tracked five kinds of large plant-eating animals in Yellowstone using GPS collars and discovered that animals don't just eat whatever plants are nearest — they follow snow melt and the timing of plant growth across the landscape. When individual animals within a species all move in similar ways, that whole species tends to eat in different places than its neighbors. Surprisingly, all five species ended up eating very similar plants overall, suggesting they weren't really competing with each other much at all.
Key Findings
Species whose individuals moved more uniformly (bighorn sheep, pronghorn) overlapped less in resource use with other species than those with highly variable individual movements (elk, mule deer, bison).
Individuals tracked plant phenology (seasonal green-up) and snow conditions to access different quality forage across space, driving community-level resource partitioning.
Despite differences in movement strategies, all five Yellowstone ungulate species showed high overall similarity in resource use, suggesting interspecies competition was not a major driver of their ecology.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A study of five large grazing animals in Yellowstone found that how much individuals within a species vary their movements determines how much that species overlaps in resource use with other species. Animals with more predictable, uniform movement patterns (like bighorn sheep) competed less with neighbors than animals with highly variable individual movements (like elk and bison).
Abstract Preview
How similar species overlap in space and resource use within communities is a long-standing question in ecology. For mobile species, how individuals move shapes their resource use and interactions ...
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