CONSPECIFIC TOLERANCE AND SEXUAL SEGREGATION IN THE USE OF SPACE AND HABITATS IN THE EUROPEAN POLECAT

Radiotracking of three couples of polecats Mustela putorius Linnaeus, 1758 in wetlands of western France showed that the monthly home ranges of male averaged 0.426 km(2) and overlapped the females' ranges which were smaller (0.125 km(2)). Although the distribution of polecat's lo calizations in the three main habitats differed significantly between the male and the female, the seasonal overlap of habitat niches (C-jk) was considerable and varied from 0.727 to 0.894. The proportion of si multaneous localizations on the same square averaged 4% of monthly loc alizations while 96% of the localizations indicated solitary activity. Also, the duration of time occuring together was short: only 1.8 days per month on average. The observations suggested that the social orga nization of M. putorius was characterized by periodic variations of in traspecific tolerance between males and females which were probably in fluenced by hormonal factors during spring and by food availability du ring summer and autumn. A strong spatio-temporal segregation, however, determined a particularly individual exploitation of the space.