Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 76, Issue 2, August 2008, Pages 277-285
Animal Behaviour

Directed movement and orientation across a large natural landscape by zebras, Equus burchelli antiquorum

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.02.005Get rights and content

We investigated how plains zebras moved across a large natural landscape by analysing the movement paths of nine zebra mares foraging out from spatially confined waterholes during the dry season in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, Botswana. Since it was essential to investigate directed movement over a range of spatial scales to determine the correct movement behaviour and strategy, we used Nams's scaling test for oriented movement. Zebras followed directed movement paths in the lower to medium spatial scales (10 m–3.7 km) and above their visual, and possibly olfactory, range. The spatial scale of directed movement suggests that zebras had a well-defined spatial awareness and cognitive ability. Seven zebras used directed movement paths, but the remaining two followed paths not significantly different to a correlated random walk (CRW). At large spatial scales (>3 km) no distinct movement pattern could be identified and paths could not be distinguished from a CRW. Foraging strategy affected the extent of directed movement: zebras with a confined dispersion of grazing patches around the central place directed their movements over a longer distance. Zebras may extend the distance at which they can direct their movement after improving their knowledge of the local environment.

Section snippets

Movement Data

We fitted nine adult zebra mares with either Televilt Posrec (N = 5) or Televilt Simplex (N = 4) GPS collars (Televilt/TVP Positioning AB, Lindesberg, Sweden; Brooks et al. 2008). Mares were collared in preference to stallions to reduce the risk of collar damage during intrasex fighting and selected at random from across the population to ensure they were from different harems. They were darted from a helicopter by an experienced wildlife veterinarian, using the tranquilliser etorphine

Directed Movement

Individual zebras had different spatial foraging strategies. Seven followed directed paths, with a positive CRWdiff (scaling test for oriented movement: P < 0.014) along the lower to medium spatial scale ranges (Table 1), signifying directed movement at these spatial scales. The remaining two zebras (552 and 530) foraged out from the centralized waterholes along a path not significantly different to a CRW, across all but the largest spatial scales. In both groups of zebras, those that followed

Discussion

We identified individually distinct, scalar-sensitive movement patterns by zebras. Seven of the nine zebras we observed over the course of a dry season followed a directed movement path while walking out from the centrally located waterholes towards their selected foraging patch. The use of directed movement implies that zebras had a well-defined spatial awareness of patch location, preferentially selecting a patch and orienting their movement by walking directly towards it (Howery et al. 1999

Acknowledgments

We thank the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Botswana for research permits and technical support, the Dulverton Trust, the Rufford Foundation, the Walt Disney Company Foundation, Columbus Zoo, San Antonio Zoo, the Gilchrist Educational Trust and Ken Moore for funding, L. Patterson for undertaking the veterinary procedures required for this study and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

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    S. Harris is at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UG, U.K.

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