Remotely-Sensed Game Trails Are a Behavioral Footprint That Explains Patterns of Herbivore Habitat Use

Keenan Stears; Melissa H Schmitt; Mike J Peel; Tsumbedzo Ramalevha; Douglas J McCauley; Dave I Thompson; Deron E Burkepile

doi:10.1002/ece3.70792

Remotely-Sensed Game Trails Are a Behavioral Footprint That Explains Patterns of Herbivore Habitat Use

Ecol Evol. 2025 Jan 11;15(1):e70792. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70792. eCollection 2025 Jan.

Authors

Keenan Stears^{1

2

3}, Melissa H Schmitt^{1

2

3

4}, Mike J Peel^{5

6

7}, Tsumbedzo Ramalevha^{3

8}, Douglas J McCauley^{2

9}, Dave I Thompson^{3

10}, Deron E Burkepile^{2

3

9}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biology University of North Dakota Grand Forks North Dakota USA.
² Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara California USA.
³ South African Environmental Observation Network Ndlovu Node, Scientific Services, Kruger National Park Phalaborwa South Africa.
⁴ School of Biology & Environmental Sciences University of Mpumalanga Nelspruit South Africa.
⁵ Agricultural Research Council Animal Production Institute, Rangeland Ecology Group Nelspruit South Africa.
⁶ School for Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg South Africa.
⁷ Applied Behavioural Ecology and Ecosystem Research Unit University of South Africa Florida South Africa.
⁸ Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management North-West University Potchefstroom South Africa.
⁹ Marine Science Institute University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara California USA.
¹⁰ School of Geography, Archaeology, and Environmental Studies University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg South Africa.

Abstract

Trade-offs between food acquisition and predator avoidance shape the landscape-scale movements of herbivores. These movements create landscape features, such as game trails, which are paths that animals use repeatedly to traverse the landscape. As such, these trails integrate behavioral trade-offs over space and time. Here, we used remotely sensed imagery to analyze the density of game trails with spatial environmental variables to understand landscape-scale patterns of herbivore habitat use in an African savanna. Woody plant cover was the best predictor of game trail density, with the highest densities correlating with intermediate woody plant cover. We also explored how patterns of game trail density compared to two known measures of herbivore habitat use (i.e., dung counts and maximum entropy modeling) and found strong quantitative fits. To understand the patterns revealed by the density of game trails, we explored the trade-off between food acquisition and perceived predation risk across a woody plant cover gradient. Using behavioral observations, we found that the relationship between woody plant cover and the distribution of game trails was likely driven by the risk and reward trade-off, with less vigilance and more feeding occurring in areas with a high density of game trails and intermediate woody cover. Ultimately, we show that game trails are a novel data source that can be used to identify broadly-occurring patterns of herbivore habitat use over large spatial scales.

Keywords: African savanna; game path; risk and reward trade‐off; species distributions; woody plant cover.