DOI: 10.5061/dryad.q08jj84
title: Data from: Characterizing population and individual migration patterns among native and restored bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis)

description: Migration evolved as a behavior to enhance fitness through exploiting
 spatially and temporally variable resources and avoiding predation or
 other threats. Globally, landscape alterations have resulted in declines
 to migratory populations across taxa. Given the long time periods over
 which migrations evolved in native systems, it is unlikely restored
 populations embody the same migratory complexity that existed before
 population reductions or regional extirpation. 2. We used GPS location
 data collected from 209 female bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) to
 characterize population and individual migration patterns along
 elevational and geographic continuums for 18 populations of bighorn sheep
 with different management histories (i.e., restored, augmented, and
 native) across the western United States. 3. Individuals with resident
 behaviors were present in all management histories. Elevational migrations
 were the most common population-level migratory behavior. There were
 notable differences in the degree of individual variation within a
 population across the three management histories. Relative to native
 populations, restored and augmented populations had less variation among
 individuals with respect to elevational and geographic migration
 distances. Differences in migratory behavior were most pronounced for
 geographic distances, where the majority of native populations had a range
 of variation that was 2 to 4 times greater than restored or augmented
 populations. 4. Synthesis and applications. Migrations within native
 populations include a variety of patterns that translocation efforts have
 not been able to fully recreate within restored and augmented populations.
 Theoretical and empirical research has highlighted the benefits of
 migratory diversity in promoting resilience and population stability.
 Limited migratory diversity may serve as an additional factor limiting
 demographic performance and range expansion. We suggest preserving native
 systems with intact migratory portfolios and a more nuanced approach to
 restoration and augmentation in which source populations are identified
 based on a suite of criteria that includes matching migratory patterns of
 source populations with local landscape attributes.
description: Elevation and geographic
 distances between individuals core seasonal rangesThese data represent the
 elevational and geographic distances between individual core seasonal
 ranges of bighorn sheep from 18 populations across WY, MT, ID, and CO. The
 IndID field is an individual ID, which has a different format in each
 population. The State field denotes the state (MT, WY, ID and CO) where
 the population was located. The population name is shown in the HuntUnit
 field. Note, populations have been aggregated as described in Appendix S1.
 Origin denotes the restored, augmented, or native classification as
 described in the methods section of the paper’s main text. The elevational
 difference between individual seasonal range centroids (in meters) is
 shown in the EleDistM column. The geographic distance between individual
 seasonal range centroids is shown in the GeoDistKM
 column.Lowrey_etal_2019_DryadDat.csv