Habitat richness affects home range size in the red fox Vulpes vulpes

The spatial behaviour of the red fox Vulpes vulpes shows a great flexibility (Voigt and Macdonald, 1984). Home range size varies from 10 to over 5000 ha (Macdonald, 1987; Voigt, 1987). In carnivores, variations in home range size, weighed for body mass (Gittleman and Harvey, 1982), are largely related to differences in habitat productivity, but the intraspecific local variation in home range size can be only partially explained by differences in productivity. Macdonald (1981, 1983) suggested that home range size and configuration were determined in the red fox by the dispersion of food-rich patches. More recently, it has been found that (a) where humans are intolerant to the fox, resting sites are often located peripherally in home ranges (Meia and Weber, 1993); (b) the ranging behaviour of red foxes cannot be explained only by the features of food resources in a complex environment with several productive habitats (Cavallini and Lovari, 1994); and (c) home range size may be directly related to the distance between rest sites and food patches (Lucherini et al., in press). In this paper, evidence for a strong influence of habitat richness on home range size of the red fox is reported.