Epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) is a pathogen vectored by Culicoides midges that causes significant economic loss in the cervid farming industry and affects wild deer as well. Despite this, its ecology is poorly understood. Studying movement and space use by ruminant hosts during the transmission season may elucidate EHDV ecology by identifying behaviors that can increase exposure risk. Here we compared home ranges (HRs) and site fidelity metrics within HRs using the T-LoCoH R package and GPS data from collared deer. Here, we tested whether white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) roaming within a high-fenced, private deer farm (ranched) and native deer from nearby state-managed properties (wild) exhibited differences in home range (HR) size and usage during the 2016 and 2017 EHDV seasons. We captured male and female individuals in both years and derived seasonal HRs for both sexes and both groups for each year. HRs were calculated using a time-scale distance approach in T-LoCoH. We then derived revisitation and duration of visit metrics and compared between years, sexes, and ranched and wild deer. We found that ranched deer of both sexes tended to have smaller activity spaces (95% HR) and revisited sites within their HR more often but stayed for shorter periods than wild deer. However, core area (25% HR) sizes did not significantly differ between these groups. The contrast in our findings between wild and ranched deer suggest that home range usage, rather than size, in addition to differences in population density, likely drive differences in disease exposure during the transmission period.

中文翻译：

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Living la Vida T-LoCoH：流行性出血性疾病病毒 (EHDV) 传播期间佛罗里达牧场和野生白尾鹿 (Odocoileus virginianus) 的现场保真度

流行性出血病病毒 (EHDV) 是一种由库蠓蠓传播的病原体，它会给鹿类养殖业造成重大经济损失，并影响野鹿。尽管如此，人们对它的生态学知之甚少。研究反刍动物宿主在传播季节的运动和空间利用可以通过识别可能增加暴露风险的行为来阐明 EHDV 生态学。在这里，我们使用 T-LoCoH R 包和来自颈鹿的 GPS 数据比较了 HR 内的家庭范围 (HR) 和站点保真度指标。在这里，我们测试了在高围栏的私人鹿场（牧场）中漫游的白尾鹿（Odocoileus virginianus）和来自附近国家管理财产的本地鹿（野生）是否在家庭范围（HR）大小和使用期间表现出差异2016 年和 2017 年 EHDV 季节。我们捕获了这两年的男性和女性个体，并得出了每年男女和两组的季节性 HR。在 T-LoCoH 中使用时间尺度距离方法计算 HR。然后，我们得出了访问指标的重新访问和持续时间，并在年份、性别、牧场和野鹿之间进行了比较。我们发现，两性的牧场鹿往往活动空间较小（95% HR），并且比野鹿更频繁地重新访问其 HR 内的地点，但停留时间更短。然而，这些组之间的核心区域（25% HR）大小没有显着差异。我们发现的野生鹿和牧场鹿之间的对比表明，除了种群密度的差异之外，家庭范围的使用，而不是大小，可能会导致传播期间疾病暴露的差异。