Mammals display a great variety of activity patterns. Although red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are generally well studied, differences in their activity patterns related to seasonality and anthropogenic impacts remain not well known. Hunting is a major anthropogenic influence on fox populations across the globe. In this paper, we assess how circadian activity patterns of red foxes in a central European montane forest change throughout the year and test whether activity patterns differ between areas with different culling regimes. We found pronounced activity peaks around dawn and particularly dusk and high levels of activity throughout the night. Foxes generally avoided daylight hours, except in wintertime, potentially indicating an avoidance of human presence. The onset and cessation of activity tracked changes in day length. Circadian activity patterns were highly similar at sites with and without targeted culls during all seasons, not suggesting a direct reaction of red foxes to hunting. Red fox activity patterns in our study were thus overall comparable with those in other environmental contexts.

中文翻译：

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不同选择制度下山地森林赤狐的昼夜活动规律。

哺乳动物表现出各种各样的活动模式。虽然红狐（赤狐）通常进行了充分的研究，但其活动方式与季节性和人为影响相关的差异仍然未知。狩猎是对全球狐狸种群的主要人为影响。在本文中，我们评估了欧洲中部山地森林中狐狸的昼夜节律活动模式如何全年变化，并测试了不同淘汰制度区域之间的活动模式是否不同。我们发现在黎明，尤其是黄昏和整个晚上的高水平活动附近有明显的活动高峰。除冬季外，狐狸通常避开白天，这可能表明避开了人类的存在。活动的开始和停止追踪了一天的变化。在所有季节中，有或没有目标剔除的地点的昼夜节律活动模式都非常相似，并不表明赤狐对狩猎的直接反应。因此，在我们的研究中，红狐活动模式总体上可与其他环境中的活动模式相媲美。