Movement behavior in a dominant ungulate underlies successful adjustment to a rapidly changing landscape following megafire

Ungulates may respond to the immediate effects of megafire by adjusting their movement and behavior, but how these responses persist or change over time after disturbance is poorly understood. We examined how an ecologically dominant ungulate with strong site fidelity, Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), adjusted its movement and behavior in response to an altered landscape following a megafire.

To do so, we collected GPS data from 24 individual female deer over the course of a year and used resource selection functions (RSFs) and hidden Markov movement models (HMMs). We found compelling evidence of adaptive capacity across individual deer in response to megafire. Deer avoided exposed and severely burned areas that could be riskier for predation immediately following the fire, but they later altered these behaviors to select for areas that burned at higher severities, potentially to take advantage of enhanced forage.

These results suggest that despite their high site fidelity, deer can navigate altered landscapes to track rapid shifts in predation risk and resource availability. The successful adjustment of ungulate species to extreme disturbances could help facilitate resilience at broader ecological scales.