University of Sassari research suggests change in habits might expose animals to more predators
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    2•5 months ago

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    Global heating is pushing mountain goats into a more nocturnal lifestyle that could expose them to more predators, scientists have found.

    A team of researchers at the University of Sassari, in Sardinia, used GPS collars equipped with motion sensors to track the activity of the Alpine ibex, a species of mountain goat, between the months of May and October from 2006 to 2019.

    The research, which compared the nocturnal activity of the ibex in two European national parks, found its nocturnal activity was higher in areas with more night-time predators, suggesting that the species’ need to escape excess heat outweighs their drive to avoid predators.

    “We expected higher levels of nocturnal activity in Switzerland where wolves [one of the animal’s main predators] were not present, but we found the opposite.

    Although we did not collect data on this, we can conjecture that their capacity to acquire food will be lower [during the night] and this will have consequences on fitness and population dynamics.

    “A shift towards nocturnal activity will also increase their overlap with night-time predators; that again has consequences on population dynamics”.

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