Broad-Scale Predictors of Canada Lynx Occurrence in Eastern North America

Abstract

The Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) is listed as a threatened species throughout the southern extent of its geographic range in the United States. Most research on lynx has been conducted in the western United States and Canada; little is known about the ecology of lynx in eastern North America. To fill critical knowledge gaps about this species, we modeled and mapped lynx occurrence using habitat and weather data from 7 eastern states and 3 Canadian provinces. Annual snowfall, road density, bobcat (L. rufus) harvest, deciduous forest, and coniferous forest were compared at 1,150 lynx locations and 1,288 random locations. Nineteen a priori models were developed using the information-theoretic approach, and logistic regression models were ranked using Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) and by our ability to correctly classify reserved data (Kappa). Annual snowfall and deciduous forest predicted lynx presence and absence for a reserved dataset (n = 278) with 94% accuracy. A map of the probability of lynx occurrence throughout the region revealed that 92% of the potential habitat (i.e., >50% probability of occurrence) was concentrated in a relatively contiguous complex encompassing northern Maine, New Brunswick, and the Gaspé peninsula of Quebec. Most of the remaining potential habitat (5%) was on northern Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. Potential habitat in New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York was small (1,252 km 2 ), fragmented, and isolated (>200 km) from known lynx populations. When federally listed as threatened in the contiguous United States in 2000, inadequate regulations on federal lands were cited as the primary threat to Canada lynx. However, the majority of potential lynx habitat in the eastern United States is on private lands and continuous with potential habitat in Canada. Therefore, lynx conservation in eastern North America will need to develop partnerships across national, state, and provincial boundaries as well as with private landowners. JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT 69(2):739-751; 2005

Habitat monitoring and projections for Canada lynx: linking the Landsat archive with carnivore occurrence and prey density

“…2006 where snow depths are also historically lower (Hoving et al . ) and where competition with less snow‐adapted mesocarnivores such as fishers Martes pennanti and bobcats Lynx rufus may be heightened (Krohn et al . ).…”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Comparison of predictor sets for species richness and the number of rare species of butterflies and birds

“…Zabel et al. , 2003; Hoving et al. , 2005) (although they may not be more efficient than conducting surveys directly for the target species), but it remains difficult to predict the number of rare species in a given location.…”

Dispersal promotes high gene flow among Canada lynx populations across mainland North America

“…Through radio-telemetry, Poole (1997) also revealed extensive dispersal distances (average *150 km and maximum *1,100 km), with no significant difference in dispersal rates between males and females or between yearling and adults. Despite these large dispersal distances, Canada lynx have been described as habitat specialists (Murray et al 1994;Mowat and Slough 2003;Hoving et al 2005), which might imply limited dispersal ability, especially in portions of their geographic range where habitat may be fragmented (Murray et al 2008).…”