Home range and daily movements of the South American subterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum.

ANA P. CUTRERA; DANIEL C. ANTINUCHI; MATÍAS S. MORA; ALDO I. VASSALLO

Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japón.

Congreso; IMC 9 - 9th International Mammalogical Conference; 2005

The Science Council of Japan and The Mammalogical Society of Japan

Home range is the area travelled by an organism during its normal activities, such as food gathcring, mating and caring for the young. Estimating its size, shape and structure provides information about social cohesion, territorial behaviour and habitat use of a certain species. For animals with secretive habits, such as subterranean rodents, radiotracking becomes an essential tool to collect data systematically on their behaviour and particularly, characteristics of their space use and rate of movements. Ctenomys talarum (tuco-tuco) is a subterranean rodent which is distributed along the sand dunes on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. Male tucos are the more aggressive and territorial sex, their establish hierarchies prior to the mating season and mate with more than one female. This led us to predict that male should have a larger home ranges and a higher hourly rates of movements than females, as correlates of a stronger territorial behaviour. To test this, 5 males and 6 females of C. talarum were equipped with radiocollas and tracked for 6-11 days from mid-February to mid-April, 2005 in Mar de Cobo (37º 45’S, 57º 56’W). Data on home range size, structure and percentage of overlap between the individuals’ home ranges were obtained and patterns of daily movements were recorded for each individual in 24-hours sessions. No overlap was detected between radiocollared adults that were in adjacent burrows, as was expected due to their solitary habits. Animals showed activity in bursts throughout the 24 hr-cycle. These results of home range characteristics are compared with those obtained previously through mark-recapture programs and studies of size and structure of the burrows of C. talarum. Patterns of daily movements recorded in the field during this study will be compared with those of rhythmicity and daily activities obtained in previous studies conducted in semi-natural conditions of the species.