DOI: 10.5061/dryad.ns1rn8q47
title: Living under the scope: behavior affects survival in a heavily harvested and long-lived ungulate

description: The spatiotemporal behavior of game species may play a critical role in
 their survival throughout the hunting season. Where humans are the most
 dominant predators, avoidance of landscape features that allow hunters
 access to hunting grounds can be key to increasing survival. However, in
 Sweden there is limited knowledge about how hunters impact populations
 through selection of behavioral traits. In this system, hunting pressure
 is generally high, and approximately 30% of the moose (Alces alces)
 population is harvested per year. To test for differences in habitat
 selection in relation to survival under varying levels of hunting pressure
 in this long-lived game species, we analyzed 10 years of individual-based
 movement data of adult male and female moose in southern Sweden. We used
 integrated Step Selection Functions to analyze habitat selection in four
 consecutive time periods (before the rutting season, during the rut,
 during the first three weeks of the hunting season and the following three
 weeks). We matched habitat selection coefficients of individual animals
 with their fate and tested for behavioral differences between harvested
 and non-harvested male and female moose in each period. Our findings
 indicate that hunters may select for sex-specific behavioral traits in
 habitat selection by adult moose. We found that hunters harvested male
 moose that selected for higher NDVI during the rut, suggesting
 personality-driven hunting mortality in male moose. In contrast, in female
 moose, the mortality risk increased with selection for shorter distance to
 roads during the hunting season, suggesting selection for behavioral
 traits by hunters. Our findings indicate that current harvest practices
 for moose result in a selection for sex-specific behavioral traits. Our
 study highlights the complex dynamics of survival in a long-lived species
 under high hunting pressure, revealing how sex-specific habitat selection
 may impact mortality risk by hunters and, in return, might influence
 population management.
description: # Living under the scope: behavior affects survival in a heavily harvested
 and long-lived ungulate Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.ns1rn8q47](10.5061/dryad.ns1rn8q47) This dataset includes 2
 R-scripts and 5 datasets to perform the analyses conducted in the
 accompanying paper. All scripts are run on R version 4.4.1 All scripts
 automatically call the needed respective datasets. ## Description of the
 data and file structure ### File: hsa.R **Description:** Script to run
 habitat selection analysis. Call the datasets: all_plots_data.rds,
 high.rds, low.rds, pre-rut.rds and rut.rds ### File: all\_plots\_data.rds
 **Description:** fitted iSSF for all animals across all years. Used in
 scripts * OBJECT_ID = animal collar ID * Sex = sex of the animal
 (male/female) * Hunt_year = the year in which the hunting season could
 take place. Equal to year, used to match NDVI and dist_forest * ta\_ =
 turning angles between GPS positions * costa\_ = cosine transformed ta\_ *
 sl\_ = meters between GPSpositions * log_sl_= log transformed sl\_ *
 case\_ = TRUE/FALSE, observed or random step * Age = estimated (by
 toothwear) age of the animal in years * y = numeric of case\_ (1,0) -
 unique_step_id = unique step identifier, combination of case and step_id\_
 (step_id\_ has been removed from the dataset) - road_dist = distance to
 roads in m at every GPS position - z_road_dist = z-score transformed
 road_dist at every GPS position - dist_forest = distance to forest in m at
 every GPS position - z_dist_forest = z-score transformed dist_forest at
 every GPS position - NDVI = Normalized Difference Vegetation Index at
 every GPS position - fate_ultimal = ultimate fate of animal (harvest, died
 of other causes, or still alive) - remaining_lifetime = remaining lifetime
 until death date in years * relative_days_to_start = used to define the
 days relative to the start of the hunting season, necessary as start of
 hunting season shifts every year * hunting_intensity = factor w/ 3,classes
 used to subset data into: high pressure, low pressure and no pressure.
 later reclassifies "no pressure" into pre-rut and rut in the
 variable hunt_intes * hunt_intes = factor w/ 4,classes used to subset data
 into: high pressure, low pressure, pre-rut and rut (based on
 hunting_intensity). Used to split the data into subsets for modelling not
 used in scripts * ID = unique column identifier, not used in scripts *
 tod_end\_ = time of day w/ two levels (day or night) * day_night =
 tod_end, but different calculation of time of day * fate_season = fate in
 specific hunting season part * fate_huntyear = fate in respective hunting
 season * (z_)forest_cohesion_[250,500,1000]m: Landscape metric, not used
 in script. Z-score transformed * (z_)slope = slope at GPS - position in
 degree * (z_)-tri= terrain ruggedness index * hour / month = hour or month
 of specific GPS position, not used - logmhr = log-transformed sl\_ divided
 by 3h (sampling rate of GPS data), distance travelled per hour in m -
 landuse_end = landuse class according to the national landcover map of
 sweden - name = data definition of landuse_end ### File: high.rds
 **Description:** best model for high hunting pressure after AIC - model
 selection. Contains a standard glmmTMB - model. ### File: low\.rds
 **Description:** best model for low hunting pressure after AIC - model
 selection. Contains a standard glmmTMB - model. ### File: pre-rut.rds
 **Description:** best model for the pre- rut ### File: rut.rds
 **Description:** best model for the rut after AIC - model selection.
 Contains a standard glmmTMB - model. ### File: survival\_mod.R
 **Description:** performs the analysis on survival in moose. Run on
 R-version 4.4.1 ## Code/software The necessary scripts are included in the
 data and are run on R version 4.4.1## Access information Other publicly
 accessible locations of the data: * NA Data was derived from the following
 sources: * NA