Social, ecological and personality factors influencing bat-eared fox foraging behavior
| dc.contributor.advisor | Le Roux, Aliza | |
| dc.contributor.author | Jumbam, Keafon Ranissi | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-02-24T08:57:01Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-02-24T08:57:01Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2019-12 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The foraging behaviour of carnivores has been extensively studied and while we know quite a bit about the foraging behaviour of generalist carnivores, there are still many unanswered questions about the foraging behaviour of dietary specialists. There’s renewed interest in dietary specialists as their specialization not only constrains dietary options, but in some cases their social behaviour as well. The bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) is a group-living, group-foraging mesopredator that forages almost exclusively on termites (Hodotermes sp.). Diet plays a pivotal role in the social dynamics of these canids, contributing to the cohesiveness of this group-living species and impacting on their parenting behaviour, as males cannot provision females or offspring with large food items, like many canid males do. However, most information on its diet comes mainly from scats and stomach content analyses and we know little about its foraging behaviour in the wild, diet choices across seasonal variations and how social, environmental and phenotypic factors impact on these foxes’ foraging behaviour. To address these gaps in literature, I documented the foraging behaviour of 20 free-living adult foxes, on a daily basis, over a 2-year observational period, making it the first study to date to have such a fine scale data on the diet and foraging behaviour of this canid. I found that while they foraged on no fewer than 18 different food categories in varied quantities across seasons, termites (Hodotermes mossambicus) constituted the majority of fox diet, ranging from 57 % in warmer seasons to 82 % in the colder seasons. Importantly, I simultaneously documented the invertebrate prey communities within their home ranges using varied assessment techniques, linking prey choice with prey availability. I found that their utilisation of supplementary food may not have been purely opportunistic as they would selectively feed on larger prey such as beetles, when available. Furthermore, I demonstrated through a literature review that local conditions had considerable effects on their diet types, and that despite being termite specialists, they showed dietary flexibility based on both temporal and spatial variations in food abundance. To understand how individual phenotype influenced their foraging behaviour, I evaluated individual differences (repeatability) and behavioural syndromes (correlations) in a suite of virtually unexplored behavioural traits (foraging and movement traits) in this species. I demonstrated that there were low individual differences in these traits thus showcasing a foraging specialist that has evolved to behave similarly in these behavioural traits. Furthermore, I demonstrated a lack of correlations between these traits, suggesting that these traits are unlikely to constrain each other and likely to evolve independently. Finally, previous research has suggested that females require extensive foraging periods to meet with the energetic demands of lactation, while males “baby-sit” offspring. However, there has been no investigation of changes in physiological stress or foraging behaviour in bat-eared fox parents. I demonstrate for the first time how parents utilised varied foraging strategies to maintain fairly low levels of physiological stress (as measured by faecal glucocorticoid metabolites). Presumably due to the shorter foraging periods available to them, male parents consumed more large food items than the female parent and non-parents when they were not at the den with offspring. The mother in this study population, by contrast, exhibited some unusual hunting behaviour, including caching rodents. This research is the first recording of surplus killing and caching behaviour ever documented in these myrmecophagous canids. My research therefore provides evidence of limited flexibility in the foraging behaviour of a dietary specialist, as it changes with seasonal and reproductive demands. Importantly, limited flexibility in dietary specialists as shown here in the bat-eared fox may have extensive implications for their survival in the face of rapid environmental changes and social stressors. | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11660/11448 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_ZA |
| dc.publisher | University of the Free State | en_ZA |
| dc.rights.holder | University of the Free State | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Thesis (Ph.D. (Zoology and Entomology))--University of the Free State (Qwaqwa Campus), 2019 | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Caching | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Diet | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Foraging behaviour | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Limited flexibility | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Mesopredator | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Otocyon megalotis | en_ZA |
| dc.subject | Seasonal variation | en_ZA |
| dc.title | Social, ecological and personality factors influencing bat-eared fox foraging behavior | en_ZA |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_ZA |