Costs and benefits of group living in a recently social ungulate : the Alaskan moose
Molvar EM and Bowyer RT. 1994. Costs and benefits of group living in a recently social ungulate : the Alaskan moose. Journal of Mammalogy. 75(3):621-630
(Adapted from authors' abstract.) Risk of predation is considered a major influence on foraging behavior and the evolution of social groups. The authors measured foraging efficiency (percentage of active time spent foraging) for moose in various categories of predation risk in Denali National Park in 1991. For a particular group size, foraging efficiency declined significantly with distance from cover. Foraging selectivity by moose for diamondleaf willow also decreased as distance from cover increased. Adult females accompanied by calves foraged less efficiently than females without calves or adult males. Group size was positively correlated with distance from cover, which suggests that social grouping in moose is an adaptation to increased predation risk. Group size was inversely related to foraging efficiency because of the overriding negative effects of aggressive behavior. This runs contrary to behavioral trends in more social ungulates, which display increased foraging efficiency with increasing group size. The authors suggest that lowered foraging efficiency in Alaska moose results from the recent evolution of gregarious behavior in this subspecies, and that increased foraging efficiency within groups of social ungulates may be a subsequent adaptation rather than an a pirori selective advantage that led to the evolution of social behavior.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Molvar, Erik; Bowyer, R
- Units
- DENA
- Keywords
- Alces alces, Behavior, Denali National Park And Preserve, Foraging efficiency, Moose (Alces alces), Mount Mckinley National Park, Mt. McKinley National Park, Population Dynamics, Predation, Terrestrial Mammals