Data for: Temporal variations in female moose responses to roads and logging in the absence of wolves

Animal movements, needed to acquire food resources, avoid predation risk,
and find breeding partners, are influenced by annual and circadian cycles.
Decisions related to movement reflect a quest to maximize benefits while
limiting costs, especially in heterogeneous landscapes. Predation by
wolves (Canis lupus) has been identified as the major driver of moose
(Alces alces) habitat selection patterns, and linear features have been
shown to increase wolf efficiency to travel, hunt and kill prey. However,
few studies have described moose behavioral response to roads and logging
in Canada in the absence of wolves. We thus characterized temporal changes
(i.e., day phases and biological periods) in eastern moose (Alces alces
americana) habitat selection and space use patterns near a road network in
a wolf-free area located south of the St. Lawrence River (eastern Canada).
We used telemetry data collected on 18 females between 2017 and 2019 to
build resource selection functions and mixed linear regressions to explain
variations in habitat selection patterns, home-range size and movement
rates. Female moose selected forest stands providing forage when movement
was not impeded by snow cover (i.e., spring/green-up, summer/rearing,
fall/rut) and stands offering protection against incidental predation
during calving. In winter, home-range size decreased with an increasing
proportion of stands providing food and shelter against harsh weather,
limiting the energetic costs associated with movement. Our results
reaffirmed the year-round aversive effect of roads, even in the absence of
wolves, but the magnitude of this avoidance differed between day phases,
being lower during the “dusk-night-dawn” phase, perhaps due to a lower
level of human activity on and near roads. Female moose behavior in our
study area was similar to what was observed in landscapes where moose and
wolves cohabit, suggesting that the risk associated with humans, perceived
as another type of predator, and with incidental predators (coyote Canis
latrans, black bear Ursus americanus), equates that of wolf predation in
heavily managed landscapes.