Distribution, Occupancy, and Habitat Correlates of American Martens (Martes americana) in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Baldwin, Roger A.; Bender, Louis C.

doi:10.1644/07-mamm-a-053r1.1

Cited by 21 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Nevertheless, few studies have tested the suitability of the new models for mammal surveys. To the best of our knowledge, only four published studies have used occupancy modelling techniques for carnivores (see Linkie et al 2007;Baldwin & Bender 2008;Boulanger et al 2008;Thorn et al 2009), none of which used occupancy models to estimate abundance. Occupancy modelling is therefore an appealing but relatively untested option for analysing carnivore data.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Efficacy of Sign Surveys, Spotlighting and Audio Playbacks in a Landscape-Scale Carnivore Survey

Thorn

Green

Bateman

et al. 2010

South African Journal of Wildlife Research

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Many carnivores are difficult and labour-intensive to detect, often leading to prohibitively high effort and cost in large-scale surveys. However, such studies provide information that is important for effective management and conservation. Here, we evaluate the suitability of three survey methods for landscape-scale multi-species monitoring. We compare sign surveys, spotlighting, and audio playbacks in terms of detection efficiency, precision, effort, and cost. Sign surveys out-performed the other methods in all comparison criteria, although supplementary methods were needed for some species and sites. We found that using established analysis techniques, robust landscape-scale abundance estimates would require unrealistically high effort and cost. Occupancy estimation required considerably lower sample sizes and was therefore more economical. We conclude that sign-based occupancy estimates constitute a versatile and efficient option for future large-scale, multi-species carnivore surveys.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Efficacy of Sign Surveys, Spotlighting and Audio Playbacks in a Landscape-Scale Carnivore Survey

Thorn

Green

Bateman

et al. 2010

South African Journal of Wildlife Research

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“…It is possible to examine habitat use at multiple spatial scales using sampling windows of differing, biologically relevant sizes (Baldwin & Bender, 2008;Sunarto et al, 2012). In this study, we examined habitat use by lions at two spatial scales equivalent to Johnson's (1980) second-and thirdorder of habitat selection.…”

Section: Survey Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Prey, Pastoralism and Poaching on the Hierarchical Use of Habitat by an Apex Predator

Everatt¹,

Andresen²,

Somers³

2015

African Journal of Wildlife Research

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As an apex predator, habitat selection by African lions, Panthera leo, is primarily determined by bottom-up processes; however, increasing anthropogenic pressures may alter these relationships. Using camera traps and track surveys in the Limpopo National Park, Mozambique, we collected detection/non-detection data of lions and their prey and combined these with occurrence data on bushmeat poaching activities and spatial data on agro-pastoralist land use and other landscape features. We used hierarchical modelling within an occupancy framework to determine the relative influences of ecological variables on resource use and non-use by lions at two spatial scales. Habitat use by lions was most strongly influenced by the occurrence of their preferred prey across both spatial scales. However, lions were strongly negatively predicted by bushmeat poaching at the finer spatial scale and generally negatively predicted by agro-pastoralist activities at the coarser scale. Restricting our analysis to the home-range scale would have greatly underestimated the impact of bushmeat poaching on the ecology of lions. The results of our study illustrate the trophic dependency of prey resources to lions and the importance of considering scale when investigating species habitat use. Importantly, our study also demonstrates the limiting influence of bushmeat poaching on the use of habitat by an apex predator.

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“…The lush understory vegetation of riparian forests has been associated with high marten prey densities (Doyle 1990), and the ample near-ground structure affords suitable sites for resting, denning, thermoregulation, and avoiding predation. For these reasons, riparian forests have been associated with the American marten throughout its range (Spencer et al 1983, Buskirk et al 1989, Baldwin and Bender 2008.…”

Section: Resource Selection In the Mesic Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal variation in resource selection: insights from the American marten (Martes americana)

Shirk

Raphael

Cushman

2014

Ecological Applications

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Behavioral and genetic adaptations to spatiotemporal variation in habitat conditions allow species to maximize their biogeographic range and persist over time in dynamic environments. An understanding of these local adaptations can be used to guide management and conservation of populations over broad extents encompassing diverse habitats. This understanding is often achieved by identifying covariates related to species' occurrence in multiple independent studies conducted in relevant habitats and seasons. However, synthesis across studies is made difficult by differences in the model covariates evaluated and analytical frameworks employed. Furthermore, inferences may be confounded by spatiotemporal variation in which habitat attributes are limiting to the species' ecological requirements. In this study, we sought to quantify spatiotemporal variation in resource selection by the American marten (Martes americana) in forest ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest, USA. We developed resource selection functions for both summer and winter based on occurrence data collected in mesic and xeric forest habitats. Use of a consistent analytical framework facilitated comparisons. Habitat attributes predicting marten occurrence differed strongly between the two study areas, but not between seasons. Moreover, the spatial scale over which covariates were calculated greatly influenced their predictive power. In the mesic environment, marten resource selection was strongly tied to riparian habitats, whereas in the xeric environment, marten responded primarily to canopy cover and forest fragmentation. These differences in covariates associated with marten occurrence reflect differences in which factors were limiting to marten ecology in each study area, as well as local adaptations to habitat variability. Our results highlight the benefit of controlled meta‐replication studies in which analyses of multiple study areas and seasons at varying spatial scales are integrated into a single framework.

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Distribution, Occupancy, and Habitat Correlates of American Martens (Martes americana) in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Cited by 21 publications

References 36 publications

Comparative Efficacy of Sign Surveys, Spotlighting and Audio Playbacks in a Landscape-Scale Carnivore Survey

Comparative Efficacy of Sign Surveys, Spotlighting and Audio Playbacks in a Landscape-Scale Carnivore Survey

The Influence of Prey, Pastoralism and Poaching on the Hierarchical Use of Habitat by an Apex Predator

Spatiotemporal variation in resource selection: insights from the American marten (Martes americana)

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