Drivers of site fidelity in ungulates

1. While the tendency to return to previously visited locations—termed ‘site fidelity’—is common in animals, the cause of this behaviour is not well understood. One hypothesis is that site fidelity is shaped by an animal's environment, such that animals living in landscapes with predictable resources have stronger site fidelity. Site fidelity may also be conditional on the success of animals’ recent visits to that location, and it may become stronger with age as the animal accumulates experience in their landscape. Finally, differences between species, such as the way memory shapes site attractiveness, may interact with environmental drivers to modulate the strength of site fidelity. 2. We compared inter‐year site fidelity in 669 individuals across eight ungulate species fitted with GPS collars and occupying a range of environmental conditions in North America and Africa. We used a distance‐based index of site fidelity and tested hypothesized drivers of site fidelity using linear mixed effects models, while accounting for variation in annual range size. 3. Mule deer Odocoileus hemionus and moose Alces alces exhibited relatively strong site fidelity, while wildebeest Connochaetes taurinus and barren‐ground caribou Rangifer tarandus granti had relatively weak fidelity. Site fidelity was strongest in predictable landscapes where vegetative greening occurred at regular intervals over time (i.e. high temporal contingency). Species differed in their response to spatial heterogeneity in greenness (i.e. spatial constancy). Site fidelity varied seasonally in some species, but remained constant over time in others. Elk employed a ‘win‐stay, lose‐switch’ strategy, in which successful resource tracking in the springtime resulted in strong site fidelity the following spring. Site fidelity did not vary with age in any species tested. 4. Our results provide support for the environmental hypothesis, particularly that regularity in vegetative phenology shapes the strength of site fidelity at the inter‐annual scale. Large unexplained differences in site fidelity suggest that other factors, possibly species‐specific differences in attraction to known sites, contribute to variation in the expression of this behaviour. 5. Understanding drivers of variation in site fidelity across groups of organisms living in different environments provides important behavioural context for predicting how animals will respond to environmental change

Water and Organic Carbon Cycles in Monsoon-driven Humid Tropics of the Western Ghats Mountain Belt, India: Insights from Stable Isotope Approach

International audienc

Influences of climate and agriculture on water and biogeochemical cycles : Kabini critical zone observatory

In the last decades, globally several small experimental watersheds were set up to study the climate and agricultural influences on water and biogeochemical cycles. Recently, the concept and importance of Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) was made and this resulted in developing such observatories in several countries including a global network of CZOs. The CZOs combine characterization, long term monitoring and modeling to allow understanding of the processes governing water and biogeochemical cycles in a small experimental watershed or network of watersheds. The Kabini CZO too was formed from similar twin experimental watersheds (forested and cultivated) developed during the last decade in the Kabini river basin in the south western part of India. A summary of the salient studies performed on water and biogeochemical cycles under the influence of climate and agriculture during the last ten years in the Kabini CZO are reported here

Determination of Ra-226 concentrations in seawater and suspended particles (NW Pacific) using MC-ICP-MS

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Reyss, J. L. Riotte, J. Freydier, R. 2 ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV AMSTERDAM MAR CHEMWe report vertical profiles of radium-226 (Ra-226) concentrations determined in seawater and suspended particles collected in the North-West Pacific using Multi Collector-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). Dissolved Ra-226 concentrations were determined in small size water samples (between 110 and 250 ml volume) with a precision usually better than 5% (internal error, two standard error, 2 sigma(m)) using a chemical protocol slightly modified compared to previous studies that provides a chemical recovery of 90%. The Ra-226 activities thus obtained are in good agreement with the Ra-226 activities determined using low-background gamma spectrometry. In this work, we report the first Ra-226 activities determined in marine suspended particles using MC-ICP-MS. We thus show that this method is very useful to determine Ra-226 concentrations in suspended particles that have been poorly studied up to now because they display very low Ra-226 activities (i.e. two orders of magnitude lower than the Ra-226 activity in seawater). Such a sensitive method can thus be used to build high-resolution vertical profiles of dissolved and particulate Ra-226 activities, which would allow us to better understand the impact of biology on the oceanic Ra cycle. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Adaptation of irrigated agriculture to climate change: trans-disciplinary modelling of a watershed in South India

No abstract available

Impact of Vegetation and Decennial Rainfall Fluctuations on the Weathering Fluxes Exported from a Dry Tropical Forest (Mule Hole)

The small experimental watershed of Mule Hole has been monitored for hydrology and chemistry since the last decade at hourly frequency for stream and monthly frequency for groundwater. It is covered by a dry tropical forest which generates intense evapotranspiration, limiting both runoff and groundwater recharge. Stream and groundwater fluxes are then disconnected, which provides a unique opportunity for distinguishing surficial from deep biogeochemical processes occurring in the watershed. Here, monthly monitoring of groundwater levels and chemistry were combined with hydrological modeling for studying how vegetation mediates the water stock in the vadose zone and the groundwater flux, and how this impacts the output flux of sodium by groundwater at seasonal and decadal scales. It is found that evapotranspiration intensity controls the pore water saturation with Na-plagioclase, which determines the depth of chemical weathering (soil vs saprolite). Moreover, evapotranspiration intensity regulates the water residence time in the vadose zone, from about a year downslope to 20 years upslope and the local groundwater discharge. These delays induce long term fluctuations in groundwater output fluxes and therefore in silicate weathering fluxes