Publications by authors named "P Kaczensky"
Article Synopsis
- Caring for newborns limits mammalian females' ability to gather resources, especially during the energy-demanding early lactation period.
- Different ungulates have developed various strategies for protecting their vulnerable newborns, from staying hidden to being mobile, which can influence their mothers' movement patterns.
- A study of 54 populations of 23 ungulate species shows that maternal movements are affected by the resource availability and type of neonatal strategy, highlighting the importance of these tactics in understanding how species adapt to environmental changes.
Article Synopsis
- Wildlife tagging is important for understanding animal behavior and ecology, but the stress from this process can affect their movement and activity levels after being released.
- An analysis of 1585 individuals from 42 mammal species showed that over 70% exhibited significant behavioral changes post-tagging, with herbivores traveling farther while omnivores and carnivores were less active initially.
- Recovery from stress was generally quick, typically within 4-7 days, and animals in areas with a high human presence adapted faster, suggesting that tracking durations should be longer and consider species and location when designing studies.
COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020 reduced human mobility, providing an opportunity to disentangle its effects on animals from those of landscape modifications. Using GPS data, we compared movements and road avoidance of 2300 terrestrial mammals (43 species) during the lockdowns to the same period in 2019. Individual responses were variable with no change in average movements or road avoidance behavior, likely due to variable lockdown conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: Macroecological studies that require habitat suitability data for many species often derive this information from expert opinion. However, expert-based information is inherently subjective and thus prone to errors. The increasing availability of GPS tracking data offers opportunities to evaluate and supplement expert-based information with detailed empirical evidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA critical question in the conservation of large mammals in the Anthropocene is to know the extent to which they can tolerate human disturbance. Surprisingly, little quantitative data is available about large-scale effects of human activity and land use on their broad scale distribution in Europe. In this study, we quantify the relative importance of human land use and protected areas as opposed to biophysical constraints on large mammal distribution.
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