Caracterización de los patrones de comportamiento de marcaje de oso andino en los bosques montanos del sur del Ecuador

Abstract

Recent studies show that Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus), like other Ursids, use trees to mark their scent. Indeed, we suggest that they communicate with each other in this way; however, the functional importance of the marking remains unexplained. To better understand the function of scent marking in social structuring among Andean bears, we established 3 experimental sites in mountain cloud forests of southern Ecuador. This study presents the behavioral responses of a wild population of bears to the scent in their territory of a male Andean bear that resides in captivity. To establish the experimental sites, we chose 3 groups of trees with no indication of previous marking and rubbed the trees with the captive bear’s feces every two months. We deployed 2 camera traps to record videos of wild bear responses to the introduced scent over a period of 10 months. Preliminary results reveal a tendency on the part of adult male bears to display mark behaviors as a reaction to the aroma of the "stranger". Which we presume is a display of territoriality between males.