Isometric scaling in home-range size of male and female bobcats (Lynx rufus)

Ferguson, Adam W.; Currit, Nathan; Weckerly, Floyd W.

doi:10.1139/z09-095

Cited by 24 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Consistent with this expectation, Ferguson et al . () found that home‐range sizes of female bobcats ( Lynx rufus ) scaled negatively with an index describing productivity during the least productive month, although they did not compare their model against any alternatives. The weak support for a similar model in our study suggests that annual productivity is a more practical predictor of home‐range size in female feral cats.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Feral cat home‐range size varies predictably with landscape productivity and population density

et al. 2015

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An understanding of the factors that drive inter-population variability in home-range size is essential for managing the impacts of invasive species with broad global distributions, such as the feral domestic cat (Felis catus). The assumption that home-range sizes scale negatively with landscape productivity is fundamental to many spatial behaviour models, and inter-site variation in landscape productivity has often been invoked to explain the vast differences in feral cat home-range sizes among different regions. However, the validity of this explanation has not been tested or described. We used regression models to examine the ability of remotely sensed landscape productivity data, average body weight and population density to explain differences in the size of feral cat home ranges estimated across a diverse collection of sites across the globe. As expected for a solitary polygynous carnivore, female cats occupied smaller home ranges in highly productive sites, and range sizes of male cats scaled positively with those of females. However, the relationship between range size and productivity broke down at highly seasonal sites. Home-range size also scaled negatively with population density, but there was no clear relationship with average body weight. The relationships we describe should be useful for predicting home-range sizes and for designing effective feral cat control and monitoring programmes in many situations. More generally, these results confirm the importance of landscape productivity in shaping the spatial distribution of solitary carnivores, but the nature of the relationship is more complicated than is often appreciated.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Negative relationships between productivity and home‐range size have been observed in several carnivores (Herfindal et al ., ; Nilsen, Herfindal & Linnell, ; Ferguson et al ., ). However, the form of these relationships has been inconsistent among species (Nilsen et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feral cat home‐range size varies predictably with landscape productivity and population density

et al. 2015

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“…Though we expected more productive ranges (mean NDVI) to be smaller than less productive ranges following an area minimizing strategy, that prediction was not supported; ranges overall had high NDVI values possibly suggesting an energy maximizing approach. A negative relationship between productivity and range size has been observed in other carnivores (Bengsen et al, 2016;Ferguson, Currit, & Weckerly, 2009;Herfindal, Linnell, Odden, Nilsen, & Andersen, 2005), though the form of these relationships has been inconsistent among species .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Scale‐dependent home range optimality for a solitary omnivore

Gantchoff

Wang

Beyer

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Spatial and temporal heterogeneity are fundamental mechanisms structuring home ranges. Under optimality, an individual should structure their space use economically to maximize fitness. We evaluated support for three hypotheses related to range optimality in American black bears (Ursus americanus), predicting (a) range location on a landscape will correspond with high vegetation productivity, (b) increasing forest fragmentation will result in larger ranges, and (c) increasing proportion of forest and/or mean vegetation productivity will result in smaller ranges. We used black bear radio telemetry data from Michigan (2009–2015), Missouri (2010–2016), and Mississippi (2008–2017), USA. Annual space use excluded winter, and we separated seasonal space use into spring, summer, and fall. We collected data from 143 bears (80 females, 63 males), resulting in 97 annual and 538 seasonal ranges. We used generalized linear mixed models to evaluate productivity (estimated through Normalized Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI]) selection, and range size (km2) variation between individuals. At the annual scale, black bears consistently selected areas with greater vegetation productivity than the surrounding landscape; yet selection weakened and was more variable seasonally. Opposite to our prediction, we found that increasing fragmentation consistently resulted in smaller ranges; non‐forested land covers and forest edges might provide greater abundance or more diverse foods for bears. Ranges with a greater proportion of forest were smaller, likely reflecting an increase in food and cover which could reduce movements, yet there was no support for more productive ranges also being smaller as expected from an area minimizing strategy. Black bears displayed a scale‐dependent space use strategy: at larger spatial and temporal scales, productivity acted as the strongest limiting factor and energy maximizing was the dominant strategy, while an area minimizing strategy was exhibited seasonally. We revealed consistent, scale‐dependent responses by black bears to environmental conditions, demonstrating the intrinsic plasticity of this adaptable omnivore.

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“…Unsurprisingly, adult male wild pigs were found to have larger home range sizes and greater movement rates than female pigs [31, 45, 83], which has also been observed in many other species such as raccoons [72, 84], bobcats [85], and moose [86]. Thus, individual-level attributes such as sex and age reflect social behaviors that affect movement and are important to consider for prediction and management.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying drivers of wild pig movement across multiple spatial and temporal scales

et al. 2017

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BackgroundThe movement behavior of an animal is determined by extrinsic and intrinsic factors that operate at multiple spatio-temporal scales, yet much of our knowledge of animal movement comes from studies that examine only one or two scales concurrently. Understanding the drivers of animal movement across multiple scales is crucial for understanding the fundamentals of movement ecology, predicting changes in distribution, describing disease dynamics, and identifying efficient methods of wildlife conservation and management.MethodsWe obtained over 400,000 GPS locations of wild pigs from 13 different studies spanning six states in southern U.S.A., and quantified movement rates and home range size within a single analytical framework. We used a generalized additive mixed model framework to quantify the effects of five broad predictor categories on movement: individual-level attributes, geographic factors, landscape attributes, meteorological conditions, and temporal variables. We examined effects of predictors across three temporal scales: daily, monthly, and using all data during the study period. We considered both local environmental factors such as daily weather data and distance to various resources on the landscape, as well as factors acting at a broader spatial scale such as ecoregion and season.ResultsWe found meteorological variables (temperature and pressure), landscape features (distance to water sources), a broad-scale geographic factor (ecoregion), and individual-level characteristics (sex-age class), drove wild pig movement across all scales, but both the magnitude and shape of covariate relationships to movement differed across temporal scales.ConclusionsThe analytical framework we present can be used to assess movement patterns arising from multiple data sources for a range of species while accounting for spatio-temporal correlations. Our analyses show the magnitude by which reaction norms can change based on the temporal scale of response data, illustrating the importance of appropriately defining temporal scales of both the movement response and covariates depending on the intended implications of research (e.g., predicting effects of movement due to climate change versus planning local-scale management). We argue that consideration of multiple spatial scales within the same framework (rather than comparing across separate studies post-hoc) gives a more accurate quantification of cross-scale spatial effects by appropriately accounting for error correlation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40462-017-0105-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Isometric scaling in home-range size of male and female bobcats (Lynx rufus)

Cited by 24 publications

References 51 publications

Feral cat home‐range size varies predictably with landscape productivity and population density

Feral cat home‐range size varies predictably with landscape productivity and population density

Scale‐dependent home range optimality for a solitary omnivore

Quantifying drivers of wild pig movement across multiple spatial and temporal scales

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