Elk habitat selection in Manitoba’s agricultural landscapes: understanding its effect on stress and reproductive success

In Manitoba, elk herds are either small or declining, and the relationship between farmland use by elk and population declines is unclear. Animals typically choose to either avoid predators or access good food resources when choosing habitat, and this trade-off may bring about natural selection if some individuals make better decisions than others. Our project seeks to understand how individual elk use the landscape in response to farmland. To do this, we will look at ranges of individual elk to determine how much farmland each individual uses as the amount of available farmland and predator pressure changes. Next we will look at the variation in nutrition, stress levels, and whether individuals give birth to calves depending on how much farmland they select. To BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Eric Vander Wal

Student:

Levi Newediuk

Partner:

Nature Conservancy Canada

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

Environmental industry

University:

Program: