Aspect of some ecological characteristics of roe deer (Capreolus capreolusL., 1758) population in North-Eastern Apennines, Arezzo Province, Italy

Some behavioural characteristics of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) were researched. We identified the factors that contributed most to variation of daily and annual activity patterns of roe deer: light-dark cycle, seasonal variability, territorial season, and predation risk (human harassment). Secondly, during the territorial period (March-August) we measured two behavioural aspects of males simultaneously: spatial use and activity levels. Home range size did not change significantly among bimonths, but activity was the highest in the bimonth March-April, suggesting an importance of territory establishment period for roe deer bucks and supportinglow cost–low gainmating strategy. Activity patterns during the territorial period were expected to depend more tightly on factors other than territory size, such as outside environmental and social factors. Thirdly, no correlation between genetic relatedness and spatial distance among individuals was found, indicating quite similar distribution of genetic relatedness between the sexes. This suggested that sampled population expressed no sex bias in dispersal and resulted in genetically unstructured population. In the last chapter we confirmed higher roe deer browsing pressure on Turkey oak than on chestnut in coppice areas. Also, roe deer used these areas more frequently during and after the coppicing than before, suggesting the importance of coppice for roe deer in terms of food resources, cover, and hiding places for fawns.