Occurrence and activity of American martens Martens americana in relation to roads and other routes

Abstract

In order to clarify the relationship between American martens Martes americana (Turton, 1806), and roads in boreal forests, we tested the effect o f distance from road on marten habitat use by comparing the frequency of occurrence, and the number of, marten snow tracks in 27 pairs o f 300 and 400 m transect segments perpendicular to access roads, and corresponding segments 800 or 1000 m away from the road, for a total o f four spatial analyses. The number o f black spruce Picea mariana, stems was generally lower near roads (-94.0 < Ts < -63.0, p < 0.05), but otherwise forest composition generally did not differ significantly between road and forest segments. Depending on the spatial scale, 1 1 -1 4 road and 15 -18 forest (out of 27) segments had marten tracks, but the difference was not statistically significant (Fisher's exact test, p > 0.05). In all analyses, marten tracks were significantly fewer near roads (Wilcoxon test: -74 .0 < Ts < -62.0, p < 0.01) than away from roads. In segments with tracks, track density was significantly lower near roads than away from roads in three o f four spatial analyses (-3.3 < Ts < -2.9, p < 0.01). The findings suggest that snow track samples near roads can detect marten occurrence, but do not reflect the clumping pattern observed away from roads. Habitat selection studies using tracks should consider the possible effect o f roads on marten movement patterns.

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

“…Overall, the effect of human-use areas on martens appears to be inconsistent. In northern Ontario, Canada, fewer marten tracks were found near roads than farther away from roads (Robitaille and Aubry 2000), whereas investigations in Maine and British Columbia found little impact of human-use areas on occurrence of martens (Chapin et al 1997;Mowat 2006). Our results support these latter findings.…”

Pairing field methods to improve inference in wildlife surveys while accommodating detection covariance

“…Although the proximity to roads creates the risk of a biased sample, because sites were baited, nearly all potential marten home ranges within the study area contain roads, and martens exhibit only extremely fine‐scale avoidance of roads, we expect our design did not seriously compromise estimates of marten occurrence or density (Chapin et al. , Robataille and Aubry , Zielinski et al. ).…”

The role of information and choice in patient-centred care in diabetes: a hierarchy of patient-centredness

“…Probability of detection is similar between track plates, remote cameras, and hair snares (O'Connell et al 2006). Snow‐tracking within 24–96 hr after a snowstorm is an effective survey method for martens (Robitaille and Aubry 2000, Forsey and Baggs 2001, Mowat 2006) and undoubtedly increased our likelihood of detecting martens if they were present. Survey duration, number of stations sampled, and number of station days sampled in our study was as high or higher, than in previous surveys at SEF (Table 3).…”