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The plant physical features selected by wildcats as signal posts: an economic approach to fecal marking

Overview of attention for article published in The Science of Nature, August 2012
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  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (68th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (57th percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 X user
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Citations

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21 Dimensions

Readers on

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133 Mendeley
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Title
The plant physical features selected by wildcats as signal posts: an economic approach to fecal marking
Published in
The Science of Nature, August 2012
DOI 10.1007/s00114-012-0962-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Ana Piñeiro, Isabel Barja

Abstract

The chemical signals of solitary and territorial felid species are essential for their intraspecific communication. We studied the selection of plant substrates during the fecal marking behavior of the European wildcat Felis silvestris from September 2008 to June 2009 in a protected area in Northwest Spain. The aim of the study was to examine the selection of plants as signal posts with respect to their physical characteristics. We hypothesized that wildcats deposit their fecal marks on plants with physical characteristics (e.g., size, species, and visual conspicuousness) that enhance the olfactory and visual effectiveness of the signal. Our results indicate that diameter, plant group, visual conspicuousness, and interaction between the diameter and plant group influence the decision of wildcats to deposit their fecal marks on plants. The wildcats chose plants with greater diameters and greater visual conspicuousness as scent-marking posts. Moreover, the wildcats chose woody and herbaceous plants, and certain plant species were marked more frequently than expected at random. Indeed, our results indicate that the fecal marks were not randomly distributed on the plants: the wildcats chose to place their marks on plants with certain physical characteristics that maximized the detectability of the signal by intruders and potential mates, thus facilitating the spatial distribution of the species.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 133 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Brazil 2 2%
Colombia 1 <1%
United Arab Emirates 1 <1%
Portugal 1 <1%
Turkey 1 <1%
France 1 <1%
India 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Iran, Islamic Republic of 1 <1%
Other 3 2%
Unknown 120 90%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 29 22%
Student > Ph. D. Student 23 17%
Student > Master 20 15%
Student > Bachelor 12 9%
Other 12 9%
Other 14 11%
Unknown 23 17%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 74 56%
Environmental Science 23 17%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 2 2%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 2 2%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 1 <1%
Other 2 2%
Unknown 29 22%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 September 2016.
All research outputs
#7,315,081
of 23,794,258 outputs
Outputs from The Science of Nature
#756
of 2,195 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#51,754
of 171,528 outputs
Outputs of similar age from The Science of Nature
#6
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,794,258 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,195 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 171,528 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 57% of its contemporaries.