Testing the ability of habitat selection theory to predict interannual movement patterns of a drift-feeding salmonid |
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Authors: | N. F. Hughes |
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Affiliation: | Behavioral Ecology Research Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada |
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Abstract: | Abstract – This article extends the logic of a habitat selection model (Hughes, Ecology , 1998) to make predictions about the way body size will influence the probability that fish will make a long distance interannual movement, from the feeding position it occupies in one summer to the position it occupies the next. The model predicts that the probability of this kind of movement will fall as fish grow and reach zero for the largest fish in the population. I tested these predictions using data on Arctic grayling Thymallus arcticus in the lower 140 km of a 260-km-long interior Alaskan river. Both predictions of the model were well supported by the data. As expected, the probability a fish will make a long-distance interannual movement decreased with fish size, and the largest fish in the population had a movement probability of zero. NOTE |
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Keywords: | habitat selection movement salmonid |
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