Landscape cover type, not social dominance, is associated with the winter movement patterns of snowy owls in temperate areas

Migrating animals occur along a continuum from species that spend the nonbreeding season at a fixed location to species that are nomadic during the nonbreeding season, essentially continuously moving. Such variation is likely driven by the economics of territoriality or heterogeneity in the environment. The Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) is known for its complex seasonal movements, and thus an excellent model to test these ideas, as many individuals travel unpredictably along irregular routes during both the breeding and nonbreeding seasons. Two possible explanations for this large variation in the propensity to move are: (1) dominance hierarchies in which dominant individuals (adult females in this case) monopolize some key, consistent resources, and move less than subdominants and (2) habitat heterogeneity in which individuals foraging in rich and less heterogenic environments are less mobile. We analyzed fine-scale telemetry data (GPS/GSM) from 50 Snowy Owls tagged in eastern and centra...