In temperate landscapes, habitat selection is constrained by resource availability during winter. Most studies of habitat selection by greater sage-grouse ( “sage-grouse”) have focused on breeding and summer rather than winter habitat. We focused on winter microhabitat when available habitat was influenced by snow conditions. Our objectives were to 1) identify what microhabitat characteristics sage-grouse select during winter and 2) evaluate whether sage-grouse selected microhabitat at the home range (third order) or the population range (second order) scale. In summer 2020, we measured shrub characteristics and herbivore dung counts at 90 sage-grouse locations from the previous 2019/2020 winter in northwest Colorado and southcentral Wyoming and compared them with 90 paired, available locations within sage-grouse home ranges and 90 unpaired, available locations within the population range. We found strong support for sage-grouse selecting for winter microhabitat at the home-range scale because we observed similar differences in shrub characteristics between sage-grouse use locations and available locations at both scales and no differences between randomly available habitat. Compared with available locations within home ranges, wintering sage-grouse selected areas of 57.1% greater big sagebrush ( spp. Nutt.) canopy cover, 23.7% taller big sagebrush, and 110.6% more visual obstruction at use locations. Sage-grouse dung piles were 7.1 × higher at used locations than available locations within home ranges, further indicating that habitat use was less random within home ranges. In winter, microhabitat selection focused on higher cover and height of big sagebrush like previous observations from nearby studies of microhabitat selected by sage-grouse during nesting and brood-rearing.

中文翻译：

---

越冬大鼠尾草优先选择居住范围内的灌木微生境特征

在温带地区，栖息地的选择受到冬季资源可用性的限制。大多数关于鼠尾草（“鼠尾草”）栖息地选择的研究都集中在繁殖和夏季而不是冬季栖息地。当可用栖息地受到雪况影响时，我们重点关注冬季微栖息地。我们的目标是 1) 确定鼠尾草在冬季选择的微生境特征，2) 评估鼠尾草是否选择了家庭范围（三阶）或种群范围（二阶）规模的微生境。2020 年夏季，我们测量了科罗拉多州西北部和怀俄明州中南部 2019/2020 年冬季 90 个鼠尾草栖息地的灌木特征和食草动物粪便数量，并将它们与鼠尾草栖息地内的 90 个配对可用地点和 90 个未配对的地点进行了比较。人口范围内的可用位置。我们发现对鼠尾草在家庭范围尺度上选择冬季微生境的强烈支持，因为我们观察到鼠尾草使用地点和两个尺度的可用位置之间的灌木特征相似，并且随机可用栖息地之间没有差异。与活动范围内的可用位置相比，越冬鼠尾草选择的大山艾树冠层覆盖面积大 57.1%，大山艾树高 23.7%，使用位置的视觉障碍物多 110.6%。使用过的鼠尾草粪便堆比活动范围内的可用位置高 7.1 倍，进一步表明栖息地使用在活动范围内的随机性较小。在冬季，微生境选择的重点是大艾草的较高覆盖度和高度，就像之前对鼠尾草在筑巢和育雏过程中选择的微生境的附近研究的观察结果一样。