Variation in individual elk behavioural syndromes, and management applications to problems of habituation and loss of migration.

当动物被吸引到人类栖息地时，它们可能会对人类不敏感，并对人类的存在和基础设施习以为常。野生动物的习性越来越受到全球的关注，因为熊、大象和有蹄类等大型动物对当地生态造成了相当大的影响。习惯化的野生动物也可能通过攻击或它们吸引的捕食者给人类带来安全风险。有蹄类动物习惯化的一个潜在后果是丧失迁徙行为，以及随之而来的局部过度草食和扰动的捕食者-猎物动力学。世界各地的野生动物管理者面临着越来越大的压力，要求他们在不使用传统致命技术的情况下解决习惯性野生动物的问题。一种有前景的替代方案是厌恶条件反射，它训练动物避开人类。不幸的是，一些人对治疗没有反应，可能是由于行为综合征(个性)的变化，这些症状经常被描述为大胆-害羞的连续体。尽管存在潜在的管理影响，但尚未对任何野生有蹄类物种的个体行为差异进行研究。我将进行一系列广泛的行为分析，包括探索新对象、解决问题和偏侧化的措施，以分类麋鹿之间和个体内的行为差异。然后，我将通过比较迁徙和非迁徙的野生麋鹿以及野生麋鹿和圈养麋鹿的行为类型，来探索行为差异的含义。利用圈养的已知谱系和历史的麋鹿，我将研究遗传、发育和经验的贡献。最后，我将确定针对不同条件化强度的大胆或害羞行为类型的厌恶条件反射的有效性。这项工作将为北美习惯性麋鹿的管理提供切实的工具，可能会推广到其他物种和地点，以改善人类和野生动物在日益拥挤的世界中的共存。

When animals are attracted to human-habitated areas they may desensitize to humans and become habituated to human presence and infrastructure. Wildlife habituation is a growing global concern, as megafauna such as bears, elephants, and ungulates, have proportionately large impacts on local ecology. Habituated wildlife can also pose safety risks to humans via attacks, or by the predators they attract. A potential consequence of habituation in ungulates is a loss of migratory behaviour, and subsequent local over-herbivory and perturbed predator-prey dynamics. Wildlife managers around the world are under increasing pressure to solve issues of habituated wildlife without using traditional lethal techniques. A promising alternative is aversive conditioning, which trains animals to avoid humans. Unfortunately, some individuals do not respond to treatment, potentially due to variation in behavioural syndromes (personality), which are frequently described along a bold-shy continuum. Despite the potential management implications, individual behavioural variation has not been studied in any wild ungulate species. I will conduct an extensive series of behavioural assays, including measures of novel object exploration, problem solving, and lateralization, to classify behavioural variation among vs. within individual elk. I will then explore the implications of behavioural variation by comparing behavioural types found in migratory vs. non-migratory wild elk, and in wild vs. captive elk. Using captive elk of known pedigrees and histories, I will examine the contributions of heredity, development, and experience. Finally, I will determine the efficacy of aversive conditioning that targets bold or shy behavioural types with different conditioning intensities. This work will provide tangible tools for the management of habituated elk in North America, that may be generalized to other species and locations to improve humans and wildlife coexistence in an increasingly crowded world.