Although the role of host movement in shaping infectious disease dynamics is widely acknowledged, methodological separation between animal movement and disease ecology has prevented researchers from leveraging empirical insights from movement data to advance landscape-scale understanding of infectious disease risk. To address this knowledge gap, we examine how movement behavior and resource utilization by white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) determine the distribution of blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) which depend on this host for dispersal in a highly fragmented New York City borough. Multi-scale hierarchical resource selection analysis and movement modeling provide insight into how deer’s individual movements construct the risk landscape for human exposure to the Lyme disease zoonotic hazard – infected I. scapularis. We conclude the distribution of tick-borne disease risk is the result of individual resource selection by deer across spatial scales in response to habitat fragmentation and anthropogenic disturbances.

Alpine large herbivores have developed physiological and behavioral mechanisms to cope with fluctuations in climate and resource availability, but climate warming might induce behavioral maladaptation. We verified this hypothesis in female Alpine ibex (Capra ibex) by modelling seasonal and daily movement and activity patterns in function of temperature and vegetation productivity, based on bio-logging data and climate change projections. In late spring, ibex moved upslope, tracking the green-wave in plant phenology. Ibex sharply decreased diel activity above a threshold mean daily temperature of 13°C, indicating thermal stress, but compensating behaviorally by foraging earlier at dawn, and later at dusk, and by moving upslope higher than on cooler days. This temperature threshold will be exceeded more than three times as often under climate change projections. In such scenarios, the imperative requirement for thermal shelter may force Alpine ibex towards topographic edges, impacting individual performance and population distribution of this emblematic mountain ungulate.