Kvarnemo, Charlotta http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8983-2900
Andersson, Susanne E.
Elisson, Jonas
Moore, Glenn I. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2413-5260
Jones, Adam G. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0228-7124
Funding for this research was provided by:
Vetenskapsrådet (B1187/1999, 621-2005-4925)
Magnus Bergvalls Stiftelse
United States Science Support Program (DEB-9804247)
University of Gothenburg
Article History
Received: 11 December 2020
Accepted: 23 March 2021
First Online: 3 April 2021
Declarations
:
: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
: This research was approved by the Department of Fisheries in Western Australia and the Animal Ethics Committee at the University of Western Australia (Approval No. 76/95/95). All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the use of animals were followed.
: All authors have given their consent.
: All authors have given their consent.
: Animal space use over time often reflects important decisions related to feeding and breeding. The West Australian seahorse does not defend territories, but keeps home ranges. Males and females keep separate home ranges, despite forming monogamous pair-bonds. We found that, although females had larger home ranges and moved greater distances than males, home ranges of reproducing pairs overlapped more with one another than with randomly chosen individuals of either sex. Both sexes, whether paired or unpaired, had home ranges that overlapped with home ranges of 6–10 opposite-sex individuals on average. Consequently, a lack of access to available mates is unlikely to be the main factor underlying monogamy in this species. Contrary to our expectation, unpaired seahorses did not move around more than paired ones. We also found no effect of body size on home-range size, distance moved or home-range overlap.