Both environmental conditions and intra- and interspecific interactions influence the movements of a marine predator

Type Article
Acceptance Date 2024-02-29 IN PRESS
Language English
Author(s) Mourier JohannORCID6, Soria Marc5, Silk Matthew2, 3, 4, Demichelis Angélique6, Dagorn Laurent5, Hattab Tarek1
Affiliation(s) 1 : MARBEC, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, IFREMER, IRD, Sète, France
2 : Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter Penryn Campus, Cornwall, UK
3 : NIMBioS, The University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, USA
4 : CEFE, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France
5 : MARBEC, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, IFREMER, IRD, Sète, France
6 : MARBEC, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, IFREMER, IRD, Sète, France
Source bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) In Press
DOI 10.1101/2024.02.26.582077
Note This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review
Keyword(s) spatial-social interface, acoustic telemetry, Carcharhinus leucas, ERGM, movement networks, Indian Ocean, Reunion Island, shark.
Abstract

Animal movements are typically influenced by multiple environmental factors simultaneously and individuals vary in their response to this environmental heterogeneity. Therefore, understanding how environmental aspects, including biotic, abiotic and anthropogenic factors, influence the movements of wild animals is an important focus of wildlife research and conservation. We apply exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to analyse movement networks of a bull shark population in a network of acoustic receivers and identify the effects of environmental, social or other types of covariates on their movements. We found that intra- and interspecific factors often had stronger effects on movements than environmental variables. ERGMs proved to be a potentially useful tool for studying animal movement network data especially in the context of spatial attribute heterogeneity.

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