Use of Human Habitat in an Extreme Desert by the Generalist Red Fox: Risk and Energy Considerations

Human-induced environmental changes are widespread, affecting the natural world at varying scales, from individual animals to entire ecosystems. In human-modified habitats, animals are expected to change their behavior in ways that depend on both environmental and species-specific characteristics. We studied the effects of human-modified habitats on the behavior of the generalist Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes, in a hyper-arid desert, where the contrast between natural and human-modified habitats is strong. We used GPS tracking to investigate the movement of 10 foxes in relation to human habitat between December 2022 and December 2024. We examined how environmental factors affected the selection for human habitats by foxes, the potential costs of visiting these habitats and whether these costs shaped the rate of visitation. We found that most foxes maintained territories in natural areas and only visited human habitats at night. Overall visitation rate increased with reduced relative humidity, while other environmental variables had only marginal effects. Individual visitation rates decreased as the distance of a fox territory from human habitat increased, ranging from almost nightly visits to a visit every three nights. At the same time, up to a threefold increase in movement was detected when comparing nights with and without visits to human habitats depending on the territory distance from these habitats. Our results suggest that the rate of human habitat use by the Red Fox in desert environments is shaped by a trade-off between elevated risk and energy expenditure related to longer movements and the benefits of using these habitats. Understanding the determinants of this trade-off in extreme environments improves our understanding of animal behavioral ecology and can support the design of human-wildlife conflict mitigation strategies.