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Males are faster foragers than females: intersexual differences of foraging behaviour in the Apennine chamois

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Abstract

Availability of food resources and individual characteristics can influence foraging behaviour, which can differ between males and females, leading to different patterns of food/habitat selection. In dimorphic species, females are usually more selective in food choice, show greater bite rates and spend more time foraging than males. We evaluated sexual differences in foraging behaviour in Apennine chamois Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata, during the warm season, before the rut. Both sexes selected nutritious vegetation patches and spent a comparable amount of time feeding. However, males had a significantly greater feeding intensity (bite rate) and a lower search effort for feeding (step rate), as well as they spent more time lying down than females. Females selected foraging sites closer to refuge areas than males. In chamois, sexual size dimorphism is seasonal, being negligible in winter–spring, but increasing to 30–40 % in autumn. Our results suggest that males enhance their energy and mass gain by increasing their food intake rate during the warm season, to face the costs of the mating season (November). Conversely, females seem to prioritize a fine-scale selection of vegetation and the protection of offspring. A great food intake rate of males in the warm season could have developed as a behavioural adaptation leading herbivores to the evolutionary transition from year-round monomorphism to permanent dimorphism, through seasonal dimorphism.

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Acknowledgments

We are greatly indebted to G. Rossi and D. Febbo for backing our work, financially supported by the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park Agency. We are grateful to the ALMNP staff for logistic support. A. Saddi helped in behavioural observations, in 2010; N. Troiani helped with vegetation analyses. C. Ferrari supervised vegetation analyses. We thank J. Pérez-Barberìa for the suggestions; L. Corlatti, K. Ruckstuhl and four anonymous reviewers, who provided advice on previous drafts.

FF planned the study, collected most of field data, worked out data and wrote the first draft; AC participated in data collection and analyses, in 2012; MC carried out vegetation and some GIS analyses; VP and GC participated in data collection, in 2012; SL supervised all the study, from its planning to writing up.

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The experiments carried out complied with the current laws of Italy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit of Behavioural Ecology, Ethology and Wildlife Management - Department of Life Sciences, University of Siena, Via P.A. Mattioli 4, 53100, Siena, Italy

    Francesco Ferretti, Alessia Costa, Venusta Pietrocini, Gloria Cesaretti & Sandro Lovari

  2. Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Bologna, Via Irnerio 42, 40126, Bologna, Italy

    Marcello Corazza

Authors
  1. Francesco Ferretti
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  2. Alessia Costa
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  3. Marcello Corazza
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  4. Venusta Pietrocini
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  5. Gloria Cesaretti
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  6. Sandro Lovari
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Correspondence to Francesco Ferretti.

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Communicated by K. E. Ruckstuhl

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Ferretti, F., Costa, A., Corazza, M. et al. Males are faster foragers than females: intersexual differences of foraging behaviour in the Apennine chamois. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 68, 1335–1344 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-014-1744-5

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