Wild canids and felids differ in their reliance on reused travel routeways

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Fagan, William F. and Krishnan, Ananke G. and Fleming, Christen H. and Ferreira, Elizabeth and Chia, Stephanie and Swain, Anshuman and Abrahms, Briana and Bracis, Chloe and Gurariej, Eliezer and Mueller, Thomas and Noonan, Michael J. and Oliveira-Santos, Luiz Gustavo R. and Tucker, Marlee A. and Anand, Gayatri and Liao, Qianru and Na, Sarah and Su, Steven and Liao, Daisy and Chilukuri, Varun and Ramulu, Shreyas and Maria Diele-Viegasr, Luisa and Dougherty, Michael and Illingworth, David and Alexandrov, Dmitry Y. and Castro Antunes, Pamela and Azevedo, Fernanda C. and Barrett, Christina and Taborda Barroso, Matías and Behr, Dominik M. and Belant, Jerrold L. and Bellan, Steven and Berteaux, Dominique and Beyer Jr, Dean E. and Bidner, Laura R. and Bishop, Jacqueline and Blount, David J. and Butler, Andrew R. and Carter, Andrew and Motta Carvalho, Marina and Chamberlain, Michael and Chistopolova, Maria D. and Clark, Darren and Conner, Mike L. and Cotterill, Alayne and Cozzi, Gabriele and Cristescu, Bogdan and Cunningham, Calum X. and Çoban, Emrah and Darlington, Siobhan and das Candeias, Ísis Zanini and DePerno, Christopher S. and Dekker, Jasja J. A. and Downs, Colleen T. and Dronovall, Natalia and Drouilly, Marine and Eblate, Ernest and Ekwanga, Steve and Swingen, Morgan B. and Farhadinia, Mohammad and Ford, Adam T. and Frair, Jacqueline and Frank, Laurence and Fryxell, John M. and Fuller, Todd K. and Fyumagwa, Robert and Garthe, Stefan and Getz, Wayne M. and Jesus Palacios Gonzalez, Maria and TJ, Gooliaff and Götz, Malte and Hamer, Rowena and Haberfeld, Mario and Hebblewhite, Mark and Hernandez-Blanco, Jose A. and Herrmann, Mathias and Heurich, Marco and Hodges, Karen E. and Houser, AnnMarie and Humphries, Bruce and López López Iglesias, Miguel Ángel and Isbell, Lynne A. and Jachowski, David S. and Jackson, Craig and Janssen, René and Jenks, Kate E. and Jiménez, Jaime E. and S. P. Jorge, Maria Luisa and Jorge, Rodrigo and Jubete, Fernando and Katna, Anjan and Kays, Roland and Kittle, Andrew M. and Klein, Rebecca and Kont, Raido and C. Kral, Michelle J. and Kusak, Josip and Lang, Johannes and David M. Latham, Andrew and Leimgruber, Peter and Lemos, Frederico G. and Levi, Taal and M. Lima, Caio F. and Lima, Edson and Lima, Fernando and Linnell, John D. C. and Macdonald, David W. and Mahoney, Peter and Männil, Peep and Masenga, Emmanuel and Mattisson, Jenny and May, Roel F. and McBride Jr, Roy T. and McDonald, Robbie A. and McNutt, Weldon J. and Miller, Karl and Minaev, Alexander and Miquelle, Dale G. and Moorman, Christopher E. and Moratozzz, Ronaldo G. and Moreno, Ricardo and Mourão, Guilherme and Munkhtsog, Bariushaa and Munkhtsog, Bayaraa and Naidenko, Sergey V. and Nava, Teresa and Odden, John and Odden, Morten and Palomares, Francisco and Patterson, Brent R. and Patterson, Bruce D. and Cunha de Paula, Rogerio and Paviolo, Agustin and Petrunenko, Yury K. and Pkhitikov, Alim B. and Poyarkov, Andrey D. and Prugh, Laura R. and Rafiq, Kasim and Esterci Ramalho, Emiliano and Ramesh, Tharmalingam and Ranc, Nathan and Ranglack, Dustin H. and Ratnayaka, Anya and Roshier, David and Røskaft, Eivin and Rozhnov, Viatcheslav V. and Ruiz-Villar, Hector and Ruprecht, Joel and Samelius, Gustaf and Schwemmer, Philipp and Şekercioğlu, Çağan H. and K. Serieys, Laurel E. and Seryodkin, Ivan V. and Simon, Olaf and Songsasen, Nucharin and Sorokin, Pavel A. and Soutryina, Svetlana and Stent, Patrick and Stoner, David and Streicher, Jarryd and Tatler, Jack and Teichman, Kristine and Thaker, Maria and Thompson, Katerina V. and Thompson, Jeffrey J. and Adriano Tortato, Marcos and Trinzen, Manfred and Van Der Weyde, Leanne and Vanak, Abi Tamim and Velilla, Marianela and Walton, Zea and Wheeldon, Tyler J. and Willebrand, Tomas and Williams, Terrie M. and Wilmers, Christopher C. and Wilson-Aggarwal, Jared and Wysong, Michael L. and Yachmennikova, Anna A. and Young, Julie K. and Calabrese, Justin M. (2025) Wild canids and felids differ in their reliance on reused travel routeways. Ecology, 122 (40): e240104212.

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Abstract

Diverse factors, including environmental features and cognitive processes, can drive animals’ movements and space use, with far-reaching implications. For example, repeated use of individual-level travel routeways (directionally constrained but imperfectly aligned routes), which results in spatial concentration of activity, can shape encounter-based processes including predation, mate finding, and disease transmission. However, how much variation in routeway usage exists across species remains unknown. By analyzing GPS movement tracks for 1,239 range-resident mammalian carnivores—representing 16 canid and 18 felid species from six continents—we found strong evidence of a clade-level difference in species’ reliance on repeatedly used travel routeways. Across the global dataset, tracked canids had a 15% (±7 CI) greater density of routeways within their home ranges than did felids, rising to 33% (±16 CI) greater in landscapes shared with tracked felids. Moreover, comparisons within species across landscapes revealed broadly similar home range routeway densities despite habitat differences. On average, canids also reused their travel routeways more intensively than did felids, with hunting strategies and spatial contexts also contributing to the intensity of routeway usage. Collectively, our results suggest that key aspects of carnivore routeway-usage have an evolutionary component. Striking interspecific and clade-level differences in carnivores’ reliance on reused travel routeways within home ranges identify important ways in which the movement patterns of real-world predators depart from classical assumptions of predator-prey theory. Because such departures can drive key aspects of human-wildlife interactions and other encounter-based processes, continued investigations of the relationships between movement mechanisms and space use are critical.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to the authors. Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Subjects:	A ATREE Publications > G Journal Papers
Divisions:	SM Sehgal Foundation Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation > Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation Planning
Depositing User:	Ms Suchithra R
Date Deposited:	10 Dec 2025 05:36
Last Modified:	10 Dec 2025 05:36
URI:	http://archives.atree.org/id/eprint/1285

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