DOI: 10.5061/dryad.dv41ns27v
title: Data from: What does the fox select? Spatial ecology of Rocky Mountain red fox during peaks and troughs of human recreation

description: Understanding animal behavior at the population level can be challenging,
 especially in the presence of intraspecific variation in behavioral
 tactics. Individuals within a population often vary with respect to
 resource exploitation and use, which may be associated with individual
 states (e.g., male or female) or extrinsic variation (e.g., temporal
 variation in food). Explicitly accounting for inter-individual variation
 can aid ecological insights, especially for species that exhibit high
 behavioral flexibility. Here, we evaluated how seasonal fluctuations in
 resources influenced individual-level habitat use and selection of Rocky
 Mountain red fox (Vulpes vulpes macroura) within Grand Teton National
 Park, Wyoming. Rocky Mountain red fox is a high-elevation subspecies of
 the common red fox (Vulpes vulpes), and native to North America. From 2016
 – 2021, we captured and GPS collared 18 individuals (11 males, 7 females)
 and evaluated spatiotemporal shifts in home range characteristics and
 habitat selection. We observed high individual variation in home range
 size, with generally larger home ranges in the winter months (x̄ = 72.92
 km2 [MCP], 83.65 km2 [Kernel], 27.20 km2 [Local Convex Hull]) relative to
 the summer (x̄ = 22.23 km2 [MCP], 23.01 km2 [Kernel], 11.11 km2 [Local
 Convex Hull]). Similarly, we observed substantial individual variation in
 habitat selection across environmental gradients. Some foxes altered their
 selection for habitat types between summer and winter indicating
 behavioral plasticity with respect to seasonal resources. Distance to
 human features was the primary driver for habitat selection for both
 seasons across foxes, and on average foxes had stronger selection for
 human features in the summer. These findings might indicate some foxes are
 concentrating on the temporal and spatial resource pulse of anthropogenic
 food, while others exhibited more natural tactics. Our work advances the
 spatial ecology of Rocky Mountain red fox, identified variation in space
 use tactics associated with humans and natural resources among red foxes
 in a heavily recreated area, and demonstrates how human activity can
 influence the spatial behavioral of a carnivore within a national
 park. 
description: # What does the fox select? Spatial ecology of Rocky Mountain red fox
 during peaks and troughs of human recreation
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dv41ns27v](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dv41ns27v) ## Description of the data and file structure We investigated how seasonal fluctuations in resources influenced individual-level habitat use and selection of the Rocky Mountain Red Fox within Grand Teton National Park. From 2016 – 2021, we captured and GPS collared 18 individuals (11 males, 7 females) and evaluated spatiotemporal shifts in home range characteristics and habitat selection. ### Files and variables #### File: ECS24-0454.csv **Description:**  ##### Variables * AID: Animal Identification * used: used or available location * d2hf: distance to human feature * doug_f: proportion of Douglas fir * hli_f: Heat Load Index * lodge_f: proportion of Lodgepole pine * meadow_f: proportion of meadow * nbr_f: Normalized Burn Ratio * tpi500: Topographic Position Index * vrm500: Vector Ruggedness Measure * Season: Winter or Summer  ## Code/software Program R version 4.1.1 was used for all statistical analyses. R packages " adehabitatHR ", "lme4", and "car" for analyses. All methods can be found within the published manuscript " What does the fox select? Spatial ecology of Rocky Mountain red fox during peaks and troughs of human recreation"