FIGURE LEGENDS
Figure 1. Location of the study area in eastern Nagano and western Gunma
Prefectures in central Japan. In this area, we collected skull specimens
of sika deer (Cervus nippon ) that were hunted by hunters or in
animal control kills. Between late December and early May, female and
male deer were killed from 2012 to 2020 and in 2020, respectively. We
also collected data for location of the deer (latitude and longitude)
for each individual. Female and male deer specimens were collected by
shooting and trapping and by trapping only, respectively. Each point
indicates the location where a female (circle) or male (rhombus) deer
was killed.
Figure 2. Relationship between the accessibility to agricultural crop
fields and the δ15N values for a) female and b) male
deer. Accessibility
(∑j exp(−αdij )Ajwas expressed using an accessibility index defined by the incidence
function model (Hanski 1994). Accessibility on the x -axis was
calculated based on α , as estimated by the maximum likelihood
method. The accessibility to agricultural crop fields was positively
related to the δ15N values (coefficient = 0.55; 95%
CI = 0.29 to 0.80) only in the female model, and therefore a regression
line is only shown for females.
Figure 3. Relationship between the distance from the location of deer
killed to agricultural crop fields (d ) and the likelihood of crop
consumption (exp(−αd )) for females. The likelihood of crop
consumption completely depended on the agricultural crop field area in
each 1 × 1 km mesh where d is zero and decreases rapidly with
increasing d (see Results). The solid line shows the mean and
dashed lines indicate the 95% CI.