from their natal range and although their mother does not 

 tolerate their close presence during summer as long as her new 

 fawn(s) survive, the yearling daughter maintains an 

 overlapping home range with her mother. The yearling daughter 

 does not use the same spot at the same time as her mother 

 during this period but based on the learning and tradition 

 established during her first year of life, continues to 

 generally use the same home range as her mother. The yearling 

 summer may also be characterized by exploratory movements 

 beyond the boundaries of the mother's home range. Although 

 those movements may eventually lead to small shifts in 

 intensity of use patterns, colonization of new sites is often 

 unsuccessful because the yearling encounters the parturition 

 territories of other females and is chased from those. 



During autumn, or earlier if the mother's new fawns die, 

 the yearling usually rejoins the mother and a matrilineal 

 group is formed. Apparently, the resources within any home 

 range are sufficient to support more than 1 female and the 

 formation of matrilineal groups results in sharing of 

 resources by relatives rather than unrelated deer. Any 

 possible diminution of resources for the matriarch and her 

 current fawns must be more than balanced by genetic advantages 

 of kin-selection apparent in sharing with older daughters and 

 granddaughters rather than allowing unrelated females to 

 preempt portions of her home range. The daughter's chances 

 for reproductive success are enhanced by her use of known 

 resources on a successfully established home range. 

 Dispersal, especially during periods of mid-high population 

 density, could only result in establishment of a home range in 

 marginal areas not yet used by successful females. Resources 

 are marginal on these areas and their location must be learned 

 by trial and error, exposing the disperser to greater peril 

 from the weather, predators, and accidents. Those 

 considerations may explain why most dispersal we observed by 

 yearling females was at pre-saturation densities, when 

 relatively better habitat was still unfilled. 



Once a home range is established, daily and seasonal 

 movements within that area appear to be governed by actions 

 that enhance the comfort and survival chances of the deer. A 

 question to be answered by an examination of movements is: 

 What types of areas best provide for the comfort and survival 

 of deer? Although detailed analysis related to that question 

 was not done, the available data did result in some obvious 

 conclusions. Movements of deer during late summer and autumn 

 indicated that the changing availability of high quality, 

 succulent forage motivated those movements. The deer that 

 shifted their areas of use during late summer and autumn most 

 often moved from areas of low topographic diversity to areas 

 that contained more topographic diversity and a wider variety 

 of microsites. Broad north-facing slopes and the attendant 



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