The way in which humans perceive the environment may not be equal to the way an animal perceives the environment, particularly in terms of time and space. This disparity in views of the world is described by the concept of Umwelt, where different organisms at the same location can have wholly different views of the space around them depending on body size, foraging strategy, predators, and more. Therefore, Umwelt is not “habitat” as defined by humans, but rather the environment as it exists and is used by the animal. Animals may respond to perceived risks, such as anthropogenic features, in their Umwelt by adjusting their movement patterns and/or by altering habitat selection at different spatial and temporal scales. We assessed spatio-temporal scale dependence in lesser prairie-chicken (LPC, Tympanuchus pallidicintus) movement and habitat selection in relation to 4 types of anthropogenic features: roads, power lines, residential areas, and oil and gas wells. We utilized the integrated step selection function to examine habitat selection and movement at four spatio-temporal scales representing local decision making (1 hour between successive locations) to more broad decision making (168 hours between successive locations).
Results/Conclusions
As the temporal grain (time between successive locations) of our analysis increased, the spatial extent (distance moved between successive locations) increased as well, demonstrating that temporal scaling our data inherently scales the analysis spatially as well. LPC movements were biased towards their breeding grounds, and increasingly so as the spatio-temporal scale increased. Birds displayed scale-invariance in the direction of their relationship to land enrolled in the conservation reserve program (CRP) and cropland, selecting CRP land cover and avoiding cropland across all scales. The CRP also facilitated LPC road crossings as steps that crossed roads contained more CRP land cover than expected across all scales. We did not find evidence that LPCs avoided power lines, residential areas, or oil or gas wells at any scale. However, steps that crossed powerlines or roads were longer than expected across all scales, indicating that birds minimized time spent under/crossing these features.
LPC movements and habitat selection are strongly tied to the activities and impacts of humans on these landscapes, and therefore these birds can be significantly impacted by policy and management actions affecting these landscapes. Moreover, the LPC’s Umwelt appears firmly centered around their lek sites, necessitating consideration for this bias in any analyses of lekking bird movements and habitat selection or conservation planning.