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Home range, range overlap, and site fidelity of introduced Siberian chipmunks in a suburban French forest

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Abstract

Home range size, range overlap, and multiyear site fidelity were investigated for introduced Siberian chipmunks (Tamias sibiricus) in a French suburban forest from bimonthly trapping sessions for 4 years (2004–2007). Annual home range sizes (100% minimum convex polygon, ±SE) were estimated from 39 trapping histories of 28 different adult residents. Males (N = 13, 1.86 ± 0.32 ha) had a home range 2.5 times larger than females (N = 26, 0.71 ± 0.08 ha); a male home range included significantly more trapping centers (arithmetic mean of capture locations) of females (5.5 ± 0.7) than of males (2.3 ± 0.5). Chipmunks exhibited strong multiyear site fidelity: mean distance between annual trapping centers of individuals trapped over two successive years was small (N = 82, 26 ± 2 m) compared to the largest home range length (ranging from 36 to 281 m); overlap between annual home range sizes of residents was 84 ± 5% (N = 11). These results improve our understanding of the space occupation of this unknown species in a novel environment.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Région Ile-de-France, the Conseil Général des Hauts-de-Seine, and the Office National des Forêts for the funding. We thank G. Spagnol (ONF), F. Bard, A. Bourgeois, N. Boyer, C. Huchery, C. Jérusalem, M. Lalot, M. Laprun, C. Mougne, O. Norvez, J. Prieur, and M. Roussel for the help on the field. Finally, we thank E. Baudry, C. Jouseau, J.-B. Mihoub, M. Pascal, and D. Réale for their useful comments on the manuscript.

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  1. Département Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, UMR 5173 MNHN-CNRS-P6, 61 Rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France

    Julie Marmet, Benoît Pisanu & Jean-Louis Chapuis

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  1. Julie Marmet
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  2. Benoît Pisanu
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  3. Jean-Louis Chapuis
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Correspondence to Julie Marmet.

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Communicated by W. Lutz

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Marmet, J., Pisanu, B. & Chapuis, JL. Home range, range overlap, and site fidelity of introduced Siberian chipmunks in a suburban French forest. Eur J Wildl Res 55, 497–504 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-009-0266-3

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