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Table 3 Characteristics of the daily grazing itineraries of cattle and their activities on pasture. The number of tracks results from pooling individual herd data per three-day survey period. Italic values indicate standard errors of the mean

From: Analysis of GPS trajectories to assess spatio-temporal differences in grazing patterns and land use preferences of domestic livestock in southwestern Madagascar

Season

Village

Tracks (n)

Itinerary characteristics

Daily activity time (%)

walking_dist (km/d)

max_dist (km/d)

dist_water (km/d)

Duration (h d−1)

Resting

Feeding

Walking

EDS

AK

10

9.8ab

2.7ab

1.5ab

11.3a

8.5a

69.3a

22.2a

 

EF

12

9.0a

1.9a

0.4ab

11.0a

9.5a

66.4a

24.1a

 

AD

10

11.9b

3.1b

2.0ab

10.6a

7.9a

66.9a

25.2a

 

MI

10

12.2b

3.2b

3.1b

11.2a

15.8a

62.5a

21.7a

   

0.39

0.14

0.27

0.17

1.44

1.70

1.31

LDS

AK

14

9.2a

3.2ab

1.8ab

13.6a

23.6a

59.3a

17.1a

 

EF

15

9.5a

2.2a

0.7a

12.4a

13.5a

67.1a

19.4a

 

AD

15

13.9b

3.5ab

3.2bc

12.7a

15.5a

68.3a

16.2a

 

MI

13

14.6b

3.7b

4.5c

12.9a

18.0a

55.9a

26.1a

   

0.47

0.18

0.31

0.19

2.15

2.40

1.48

RS

AK

5

13.1b

3.7ab

1.2a

12.3a

10.7a

66.1a

23.2a

 

EF

6

9.4a

1.9a

0.7a

11.6a

18.0a

58.8a

23.2a

 

AD

11

13.4b

2.6ab

1.0a

12.1a

24.3a

56.1a

19.6a

 

MI

12

15.0bc

2.4a

2.0a

12.0a

12.5a

64.9a

22.6a

 

C-T

13

17.9c

4.4b

1.9a

12.8a

6.8a

66.9a

26.3a

   

0.51

0.21

0.18

0.16

1.81

1.90

1.26

Independent variable

 

df

       

Site

 

1

***

***

***

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

Season

 

2

***

n.s.

**

***

*

n.s.

n.s.

  1. walk_dist, total distance of daily trajectories; max_dist, furthest distance of a herd from its night enclosure; dist_water, linear distance between night enclosure and the nearest visited water hole. EDS, early dry season; LDS, late dry season; RS, rainy season. AD, Andremba; AK, Ankilibory; EF, Efoetse; MI, Miarintsoa; C-T, transhumant cattle herds from AK and EF on plateau. a, b, cSignificant differences between means in the same column within one season according to post hoc tests. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001, n.s., non-significant