Corrigendum to: Virginia opossum distributions are influenced by human-modified landscapes and water availability in tallgrass prairies

Wait, Kyle R; Ahlers, Adam A.

doi:10.1093/jmammal/gyz212

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In semiarid environments, water availability likely affects the distribution of all flora and fauna including mammal communities (Schuette et al 2013; Wait et al 2020). Our model demonstrates that water availability near sites enhances carnivore richness, but also is associated with greater amounts of land cover heterogeneity surrounding sites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct and indirect landscape-scale pathways structure carnivore communities in an agro-prairie ecosystem

Werdel

Piper

Ricketts

et al. 2023

Journal of Mammalogy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many carnivore populations have experienced substantial declines and are at increased risk of extinction, mainly due to negative interactions with humans and biological traits that make them susceptible to habitat loss and fragmentation, often driven by agricultural expansion. Carnivore community richness is likely influenced by many direct and indirect factors, though it is unclear how carnivore communities are structured in prairie landscapes that are considered one of the most imperiled ecosystems worldwide. Our goal was to identify landscape-scale effects driving carnivore community richness in a contemporary agro-prairie ecosystem. We used 3 years of presence data (2018–2020) from camera-trap sites (n = 381) distributed across western Kansas, United States and developed a structural equation model (SEM) to test a priori hypotheses explaining carnivore richness. Measures of water availability, native prairie, and agriculture—as well as sampling effort (i.e., days cameras were active)—were all positively associated with carnivore richness. Additionally, our index of rabbit abundances at sites had a direct positive effect on our measure of carnivore richness. Our SEM explained 42% of the variance in carnivore richness (χ2 = 8.76, d.f. = 21, P = 0.99) in this human-dominated landscape. Our results suggest that carnivore communities in agro-prairie landscapes are structured through multiple direct and indirect landscape-scale pathways. Contemporary agro-prairie mosaics may act as filters for the agricultural tolerance of carnivores, with species more vulnerable to native prairie loss becoming locally extirpated.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%