Article

 

Female elk contacts are neither frequency nor density dependent Public Deposited

Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/articles/8s45q914s

To the best of our knowledge, one or more authors of this paper were federal employees when contributing to this work. This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by Ecological Society of America and can be found at:  http://esa.org/.

Descriptions

Attribute NameValues
Creator
Abstract
  • Identifying drivers of contact rates among individuals is critical to understanding disease dynamics and implementing targeted control measures. We studied the interaction patterns of 149 female elk (Cervus canadensis) distributed across five different regions of western Wyoming over three years, defining a contact as an approach within one body length (~2 m). Using hierarchical models that account for correlations within individuals, pairs, and groups, we found that pairwise contact rates within a group declined by a factor of three as group sizes increased 33-fold. Per capita contact rates, however, increased with group size according to a power function, such that female elk contact rates fell in between the predictions of density- or frequency-dependent disease models. We found similar patterns for the duration of contacts. Our results suggest that larger elk groups are likely to play a disproportionate role in the disease dynamics of directly transmitted infections in elk. Supplemental feeding of elk had a limited impact on pairwise interaction rates and durations, but per capita rates were more than two times higher on feeding grounds. Our statistical approach decomposes the variation in contact rate into individual, dyadic, and environmental effects, and provides insight into factors that may be targeted by disease control programs. In particular, female elk contact patterns were driven more by environmental factors such as group size than by either individual or dyad effects.
Resource Type
DOI
Date Available
Date Issued
Citation
  • Cross, P. C., Creech, T. G., Ebinger, M. R., Manlove, K., Irvine, K., Henningsen, J., . . . Creel, S. (2013). Female elk contacts are neither frequency nor density dependent. Ecology, 94(9), 2076-2086. doi:10.1890/12-2086.1
Journal Title
Journal Volume
  • 94
Journal Issue/Number
  • 9
Academic Affiliation
Keyword
Rights Statement
Funding Statement (additional comments about funding)
  • This work was supported by the Wyoming Wildlife– Livestock Disease Partnership, National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health Ecology of Infectious Disease Grant DEB-1 067 129, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Publisher
Peer Reviewed
Language
Replaces
Additional Information
  • description.provenance : Made available in DSpace on 2013-11-12T19:13:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CreechTGFisheriesWildlifeFemaleElkContacts.pdf: 2761824 bytes, checksum: d356e69989b74f2c7805c37789827141 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09
  • description.provenance : Submitted by Deborah Campbell (deborah.campbell@oregonstate.edu) on 2013-11-12T19:13:44Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CreechTGFisheriesWildlifeFemaleElkContacts.pdf: 2761824 bytes, checksum: d356e69989b74f2c7805c37789827141 (MD5)

Relationships

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
12579s58c?file=thumbnail CreechTGFisheriesWildlifeFemaleElkContacts.pdf 2017-07-06 Public