The bind of the burrow: space use is dominated by selection for burrow habitat over foraging habitat in an arid-adapted carnivore

Abstract

Our understanding of habitat selection in wild vertebrates has been heavily influenced by observations of preferred foraging areas. However, foraging is only one of many ways animals interact with their environment, and preferences for habitat features that support resting, breeding, and safety, along with trade-offs between these needs, remain underexplored. These trade-offs are likely to be particularly acute in complex environments where these needs are met in different locations. Using a long-term dataset of movements and life history, we examine how preferences for foraging areas and burrow sites shape space use in Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta). Meerkats cannot dig new sleeping and breeding burrows and must use those abandoned by other species, potentially generating trade-offs in daily space use if overnight refuges are far from optimal foraging areas. We find that space use is strongly anchored by burrow location, with burrows in calcareous pans and dry riverbed ("white sand") habitat being preferred year-round and showing lower burrow switching rates. However, white sand areas were not preferred for foraging, and yielded lower weight gains, particularly during the dry season. As a result, meerkats faced a trade-off between optimal burrow locations and productive foraging grounds, as indicated by faster, longer, and more energetically costly travel when moving through or waking up in white sands. Our results suggest that changes in the distribution or abundance of key burrow-constructing species in desert environments may have cascading effects on the many secondary burrow-using species that depend on them for survival and reproduction. More broadly, our results highlight that limited refuge availability across the landscape can impose strong ecological constraints on animals and may restrict behavioural plasticity under environmental change, particularly if productive foraging areas shift.