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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Rangeland Resources & Systems Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #352806
Title: Social-butterflies at the wildlife-livestock interface: disease-relevant variation in individual animal sociality

Author
item CUZZOCREO, MATTHEW - University Of Wyoming
item ALBEKE, SHANNON - University Of Wyoming
item Peck, Dannele
item MCDONALD, DAVID - University Of Wyoming
item WISDOM, MICHAEL - Forest Service (FS)
item ROWLAND, MARY - Forest Service (FS)
item SCHUMAKER, BRENT - University Of Wyoming

Submitted to: International Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/16/2018
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Objective: Disease spillovers at the wildlife-livestock interface pose serious threats to the agricultural and recreation industries. Disease dynamics are influenced in part by the social behavior of individual animals. Individuals within the same population may exhibit different social behaviors, both in the number of individuals or species they associate with, and the intensity of those associations. We model association networks between domestic cattle and free-ranging elk (Cervus elaphus) and test for differences in individual animals’ sociality. Methods: Using network theory, we develop three types of association models: 1) elk–elk, 2) elk–cattle, and 3) a global network containing associations among all elk and all cattle. We quantify these networks using GPS location data from collared elk and cattle at the Starkey Experimental Forest and Range in Oregon, USA. The dataset contains 1,492,564 elk and 497,674 cattle location estimates (2007-2013). An “association” is any spatial intersection of the error ellipses surrounding two animals’ synchronous point location estimates. Results: Our dataset contains 491,735 elk–elk and 1304 elk–cattle associations. Of the 319 collared elk, 208 associated with at least one elk, while 194 elk associated with at least one cow. Statistics indicate that elk are more social with other elk than with cattle, but the most social (within species) elk are also most likely to associate with cattle. All elk that associated with cattle also associated with elk. Yet 40% of elk that had at least one association with another elk never had an association with cattle. Conclusions: At the Starkey Forest site, elk most willing to associate with cattle are also more social with other elk. These more-social individuals, both with their own and other species, could complicate control of wildlife-livestock diseases in the event of an incursion.