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Spatial Aspects of Gardens Drive Ranging in Urban Foxes (Vulpes vulpes): The Resource Dispersion Hypothesis Revisited

Tolhurst, Bryony A., Baker, Rowenna J., Cagnacci, Francesca, Scott, Dawn M.·2020·Animals
DOI 10.3390/ani10071167PMC PMC7401560
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Abstract

Red foxes are a well-established species of urban ecosystems in the UK and worldwide. Understanding the spatial ecology of foxes in urban landscapes is important for enhancement of urban biodiversity and effective disease management. The Resource Dispersion Hypothesis (RDH) holds that territory (home range) size is linked to distribution and richness of habitat patches such that aggregation of rich resources should be negatively associated with range size. Here, we tested the RDH on a sample of 20 red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in the city of Brighton and Hove. We focused on residential garden areas, as foxes were associated with these in previous studies. We equipped 12 male and 8 female foxes with GPS collars recording at 15 min intervals during discrete seasons over four years. We regressed fox core area size against garden size, number of garden patches, and edge density within and between patches as extracted from GIS in a series of bivariate linear mixed models. We found that foxes used smaller core areas where gardens were large and well-connected and larger core areas where numerous, smaller gardens were fragmented by internal barriers (e.g., fences, walls) or bisected by other habitats such as managed grassland or built-up areas. Our findings confirm the RDH and help to inform future urban planning for wildlife.

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Sorted by citations

Authors
Tolhurst, B. A., Baker, R. J., Cagnacci, F., & Scott, D. M.
Affiliations
  • Ecology, Conservation and Zoonosis (ECZ) Research and Enterprise Group, Huxley Building, University of Brighton, Brighton BN2 4GJ, UK
  • Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Via Mach 1, San Michele all’Adige, 38010 Trentino, Italy
  • School of Life Sciences, Huxley Building, Keele University, Keele ST5 5BG, UK
ORCID
Venue
Animals
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2020-07-09
Volume
10
Issue
7
Pages
1167
ISSN
2076-2615
DOI
10.3390/ani10071167
PMC
PMC7401560
Cited by
15
References
1
Language
en
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)

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