DOI: 10.5061/dryad.b8gtht7kh
title: Tracking movements in an endangered capercaillie population using DNA-tagging

description: Knowing the location and movements of individuals at various temporal and
 spatial scales is an important facet of behavior and ecology. In
 threatened populations, movements that would ensure gene flow and
 population viability are often challenged by habitat fragmentation. Also
 in those endangered populations capturing and handling individuals to tag
 them, or to obtain tissue samples, can present additional challenges. DNA
 tagging, i.e. non-invasive individual identification of samples, can
 reveal movement patterns. We used fecal material genetically assigned to
 individuals to indirectly track movements of a large-bodied, endangered
 forest bird, Cantabrian capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus cantabricus). We
 wanted to know how the birds were using the fragmented forest landscape,
 and whether they showed fidelity to display areas. We used multi-event
 capture-recapture models to estimate fidelity to display areas among three
 consecutive mating seasons. We identified 127 individuals, and registered
 movements of 22 females and 48 males. Most observed movements were as
 expected relatively short, concentrated around display areas. We did not
 find differences in movement distances between females and males within
 mating seasons, or between them. Fidelity to display areas among seasons
 was 0.62 (± 0.12 SE) for females and 0.77 (± 0.07 SE) for males. The best
 CR model suggested no sex or season effects. Several longer movements, up
 to 9.9 km, linked distant display areas, demonstrating that Cantabrian
 capercaillies were able to move between different parts of the study area,
 complementing previous studies on gene flow. Those longer movements may be
 taking birds out of the study area, and into historical capercaillie
 territories, which still include substantial forest cover. The
 non-invasive DNA tagging approach provided a much larger sample size than
 would have been feasible with direct tracking. Lack of information on the
 social status of individuals and timing of movements are some
 disadvantages of DNA tagging.
description: # Tracking movements in an endangered capercaillie population using
 DNA-tagging This dataset
 contains the information on the individual birds identified, and the
 relative positions of their captures and recaptures. The coordinates have
 been shifted to a non-geographical reference, although maintaining the
 original dimensions, to comply with the Spanish guidelines for treatment
 of information on endangered species. ## Description of the data and file
 structure \- **all_locations.csv**: this is a comma-separated dataset that
 contains all locations of individuals (column ***indv***) included in the
 study. The coordinates (fields ***x_relative*** and ***y_relative***)
 resulted from shifting the original coordinates to a non-geographical
 reference, although maintaining the original dimensions, which would allow
 repeating the spatial treatment of the data. Also included are fields
 ***year*** (year of the Spring survey) and ***sex***. In the latter males
 are coded as ***M***, females as ***F***. \- **max_dist_movements.csv**:
 this is a comma-separated dataset that contains the locations to and from
 corresponding to maximum distance movements registered for each
 individual. Fields ***indv*** and ***sex*** are as above. Field
 ***unique_id*** identifies each movement. Field ***scope*** identifies
 whether the movement was recorded *within* a mating season, or *between*
 mating seasons. Fields ***year_from*** and ***year_to*** identify mating
 seasons. Fields ***x_relative_from***, ***y_relative_from***,
 ***x_relative_to***, ***y_relative_to*** identify the relative coordinates
 (see above) for those movements. \- **caper_moves_esurge.csv**: This is a
 comma-separated dataset, where each line corresponds to individual
 capture-recapture histories of Cantabrian capercaillie, as used in
 multi-event modeling software E-SURGE, and following its notation. Fields
 ***H:c1***, ***H:c2***, ***H:c3***, correspond to capture sessions of
 Spring 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively. Coding in those fields
 corresponds to possible events of the CR multi-event model, indicated as
 follows: ***1 - Captured in t in the same site as at t-1*** ***2 -
 Captured in t in a different site as at t-1*** ***3 - Captured in t but
 not captured in t-1 (thus no movement information)*** ***0 - Not captured
 (thus no movement information)***. Field ***S:*** indicates the sample
 size of each capture session (=1, since each row corresponds to the
 encounter history of a single individual). Two classes of individual were
 considered (males and females), and are coded as group effect in field
 ***$COV:sex***.