The habitat use of thirteen female and four male GPS collared white-tailed deer, captured in the Clear Lake area of Riding Mountain National Park between 2012 and 2014, was examined. Range sizes were smallest during the summer and largest during the breeding season for both sexes, with an additional peak in female range size occurring in April. Female deer displayed a greater association with areas of human use and infrastructure than males, with the highest use of these areas by females occurring during the late winter and early spring. This increased use of developed areas by deer during the winter and early spring is thought to relate to factors including food resource availability, snow depth, predator avoidance, and thermal cover. / October 2016

Macoun’s arctic (Oeneis macounii) is a biennial satyrine butterfly found predominantly in boreal forests of North America. I monitored populations of O. macounii in Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP) in 2011 and in Sandilands Provincial Forest in 2012. I captured, sexed, marked and took UTM coordinates of butterflies to compare population sizes, sex ratios, longevity, dispersal and behaviour. I measured habitat variables around capture sites at RMNP, to establish environmental characteristics associated with butterfly occurrence. Population estimates at Sandilands show that the population size there is robust, but could not be calculated at RMNP. The number of butterflies observed at RMNP suggests that the population there is small and localized. In RMNP, males were more often in forested sites with sunny clearings, while female encounter sites were dominated by grasses, suggesting sexual segregation. The data collected from this survey is important for conservation strategies for the declining population at RMNP.

Many mammals are social. The most basic social behaviour is when the actions of one conspecific are directed toward another, what we call the dyadic interaction. Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors may affect an individuals propensity to interact with other members of a population. I used a social cervid, elk (Cervus elaphus), as a model species to test the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic factors of sociality on dyadic interactions. Dyadic interactions not only form the basis for social structure and information transfer within a population, but are also routes of pathogen transmission. My objective in this thesis was thus twofold: to improve our understanding of sociobiology, but also to gain insight into how sociality may underlie the transmission of communicable wildlife disease. I used a hierarchical, autecological approach from DNA, through individual, dyad, group, subpopulation, and ultimately population to explore the effects of intrinsic factors (e.g., sex and pairwise genetic relatedness) and extrinsic factors (e.g., season, conspecific density, habitat, and elk group size) on sociality. Elk in Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP), Manitoba, Canada, are exposed to the causal agent of bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis; TB); however, spatial variation in apparent disease prevalence suggests that TB can only persist in one subpopulation within the Park. Using the natural RMNP system and a captive elk herd that I manipulated, I explored factors that influence interaction rates and durations (as a proxy for pathogen transmission) among elk. Sexual segregation in elk results in seasonal and sex-based differences in interaction rate and duration; with interactions peaking in autumn-winter for both sexes. Female-female dyads interact more frequently than male-male dyads. However, male-male dyads interact for longer durations than do female-female dyads. Interaction rate and duration did not covary with pairwise relatedness. Conspecific density also had sex-specific results for interaction rate and duration. Whereas male-male dyadic interaction rates increase with density, female-female dyads increase until they reach a threshold and subsequently reduce their interaction rates at high density. I observed density dependence in interaction rates in experimental trials and from field data. Furthermore, social networks revealed that social familiarity (i.e., heterogeneity of interactions) can be both frequency- and- density dependent depending on the strength of the relationship (i.e., number of repeat interactions). Density also affected the likelihood that an interaction would occur; however, this was modified by vegetation association used by elk. My results reveal several ecological and evolutionary implications for information transfer and pathogen transmission. In particular, I show that seasonal inter-sex routes of transfer may exist and that transfer is likely to be density-dependent. Finally, I conclude that such transfer is modified by available resources.

Many mammals are social. The most basic social behaviour is when the actions of one conspecific are directed toward another, what we call the dyadic interaction. Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors may affect an individuals propensity to interact with other members of a population. I used a social cervid, elk (Cervus elaphus), as a model species to test the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic factors of sociality on dyadic interactions. Dyadic interactions not only form the basis for social structure and information transfer within a population, but are also routes of pathogen transmission. My objective in this thesis was thus twofold: to improve our understanding of sociobiology, but also to gain insight into how sociality may underlie the transmission of communicable wildlife disease. I used a hierarchical, autecological approach from DNA, through individual, dyad, group, subpopulation, and ultimately population to explore the effects of intrinsic factors (e.g., sex and pairwise genetic relatedness) and extrinsic factors (e.g., season, conspecific density, habitat, and elk group size) on sociality. Elk in Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP), Manitoba, Canada, are exposed to the causal agent of bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis; TB); however, spatial variation in apparent disease prevalence suggests that TB can only persist in one subpopulation within the Park. Using the natural RMNP system and a captive elk herd that I manipulated, I explored factors that influence interaction rates and durations (as a proxy for pathogen transmission) among elk. Sexual segregation in elk results in seasonal and sex-based differences in interaction rate and duration; with interactions peaking in autumn-winter for both sexes. Female-female dyads interact more frequently than male-male dyads. However, male-male dyads interact for longer durations than do female-female dyads. Interaction rate and duration did not covary with pairwise relatedness. Conspecific density also had sex-specific results for interaction rate and duration. Whereas male-male dyadic interaction rates increase with density, female-female dyads increase until they reach a threshold and subsequently reduce their interaction rates at high density. I observed density dependence in interaction rates in experimental trials and from field data. Furthermore, social networks revealed that social familiarity (i.e., heterogeneity of interactions) can be both frequency- and- density dependent depending on the strength of the relationship (i.e., number of repeat interactions). Density also affected the likelihood that an interaction would occur; however, this was modified by vegetation association used by elk. My results reveal several ecological and evolutionary implications for information transfer and pathogen transmission. In particular, I show that seasonal inter-sex routes of transfer may exist and that transfer is likely to be density-dependent. Finally, I conclude that such transfer is modified by available resources.