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 km2 and overlapped the females' ranges which were smaller (0.125 km2). Although the distribution of polecat's localizations in the three main habitats differed significantly between the male and the female, the seasonal overlap of habitat niches (Cjk) was considerable and varied from 0.727 to 0.894. The proportion of simultaneous localizations on the same square averaged 4% of monthly localizations 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 organization of M. putorius was characterized by periodic variations of intra- specific tolerance between males and females which were probably influenced by hormonal factors during spring and by food availability during summer and autumn. A strong spatio-temporal segregation, however, determined a particularly individual exploitation of the space.