Using Mountain Lion Habitat Selection in Management

Dellinger, Justin A.; Cristescu, Bogdan; Ewanyk, Jonathan; Gammons, Daniel J.; Garcelon, David K.; Johnston, Phillip; Martins, Quinton; Thompson, Craig M.; Vickers, T. Winston; Wilmers, Christopher C.; Wittmer, Heiko; Torres, Steven G.

doi:10.1002/jwmg.21798

Cited by 26 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(89 reference statements)

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“…Twelve environmental, landscape, and anthropogenic variables were selected to model human-black bear conflicts (Table 1). General landscape characteristics, such as elevation, aspect, terrain ruggedness, and land cover are often used when modeling species distributions or human-wildlife conflicts [34][35][36][37]. Forest density, distance to forests, and distance to streams, were selected because of their biological relevance to black bear habitat as described by previous literature [34,38].…”

Section: Gis Layersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping and modeling human-black bear interactions in the Catskills region of New York using resource selection probability functions

et al. 2021

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Black bears (Ursus americanus) are an iconic and common species throughout much of the United States and people regularly interact with these large predators without conflict. However, negative interactions between people and bears can manifest in conflicts that can hinder conservation efforts. Black bears are highly attracted to anthropogenic sources of food, and negative interactions with people are primarily a product of trash mismanagement. In the Catskills region of New York State, home to a large population of black bears, over 400 such conflicts are reported each year. While the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has seen progress recently in educating residents of the region on how to reduce unwanted interactions with bears, they have had less success educating the 12 million tourists that visit the Catskills each year. Understanding where conflict may occur in the future, and the environmental and anthropogenic factors that precede it, may help guide management strategies to reduce these unwanted interactions. Therefore, we designed resource selection probability functions (RSPFs) to examine the relationship between human-black bear conflicts in the Catskills with a suite of landscape and anthropogenic data, using conflicts reported to the DEC across the state of New York in 2018–2019. We found that human-black bear conflicts were more likely to occur in the residential areas of the Catskills on the urban-wildland interface; areas with relatively higher human population densities, away from dense forest, and further from heavily urbanized areas. While future work is needed to continuously validate our model predictions, our results will provide the DEC and other conservation managers in the Catskills the ability to create more targeted plans for mitigating unwanted human-black bear interactions, and provide a better understanding of the mechanisms driving human-carnivore interactions at an urban-wildland interface more generally.

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Section: Gis Layersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping and modeling human-black bear interactions in the Catskills region of New York using resource selection probability functions

et al. 2021

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“…One of the most developed states in the United States is California, which contains the largest census size with over 39 million people (U.S. Census, 2019 ). Although the development of California has led to historical extirpations of other apex predators, such as the grizzly bear ( Ursus arctos ; Herrero, 1970 ) and gray wolf ( Canis lupus ; Schmidt, 1991 ), the puma ( Puma concolor ; also known as mountain lion and cougar) has maintained a widespread distribution throughout the state (Dellinger, Cristescu, et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The puma is a large‐bodied felid that originated in South America, migrated and expanded throughout North America, and experienced a human‐induced range restriction to the western United States, with an extant remnant population in Florida (Culver et al, 2000 ). Currently, approximately half of all apparent puma habitats in California is conserved, and the remainder could be subject to further development (Dellinger et al, 2020 ). Much of the inland areas of California have continous stretches of protected habitat (Dellinger et al, 2020 ), supporting puma populations with high genetic diversity and large effective population sizes (Gustafson et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi‐population puma connectivity could restore genomic diversity to at‐risk coastal populations in California

Gustafson

Gagne

Buchalski

et al. 2022

Evolutionary Applications

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Urbanization is decreasing wildlife habitat and connectivity worldwide, including for apex predators, such as the puma (Puma concolor). Puma populations along California's central and southern coastal habitats have experienced rapid fragmentation from development, leading to calls for demographic and genetic management. To address urgent conservation genomic concerns, we used double‐digest restriction‐site associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing to analyze 16,285 genome‐wide single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 401 pumas sampled broadly across the state. Our analyses indicated support for 4–10 geographically nested, broad‐ to fine‐scale genetic clusters. At the broadest scale, the four genetic clusters had high genetic diversity and exhibited low linkage disequilibrium, indicating that pumas have retained genomic diversity statewide. However, multiple lines of evidence indicated substructure, including 10 finer‐scale genetic clusters, some of which exhibited fixed alleles and linkage disequilibrium. Fragmented populations along the Southern Coast and Central Coast had particularly low genetic diversity and strong linkage disequilibrium, indicating genetic drift and close inbreeding. Our results demonstrate that genetically at risk populations are typically nested within a broader‐scale group of interconnected populations that collectively retain high genetic diversity and heterogenous fixations. Thus, extant variation at the broader scale has potential to restore diversity to local populations if management actions can enhance vital gene flow and recombine locally sequestered genetic diversity. These state‐ and genome‐wide results are critically important for science‐based conservation and management practices. Our nested population genomic analysis highlights the information that can be gained from population genomic studies aiming to provide guidance for the conservation of fragmented populations.

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“…One of the most developed states in the United States is California, which contains the largest census size with over 39 million people (US Census, 2019). Although the development of California has led to historical extirpations of other apex predators, such as the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos; Herrero, 1970) and gray wolf (Canis lupus; Schmidt, 1991), the puma (Puma concolor; also known as mountain lion and cougar) has maintained a widespread distribution throughout the state (Dellinger et al, 2020a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Currently, approximately half of all apparent puma habitat in California is conserved and the remainder could be subject to further development (Dellinger et al 2020a). Much of the inland areas of California have continous streches of protected habitat (Dellinger et al 2020a) supporting puma populations with high genetic diversity and large effective populations sizes (Gustafson et al, 2019). However, movement corridors among coastal mountain ranges are increasingly being degraded by human development (Burdett et al, 2010;Suraci, Nickel, & Wilmers, 2020;Zeller et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broad-scale puma connectivity could restore genomic diversity to fine-scale coastal populations

Gustafson

Gagne

Buchalski³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Urbanization is decreasing wildlife habitat and connectivity worldwide, including for apex predators, such as the puma (Puma concolor). Puma populations along California's central and southern coastal habitats have experienced rapid fragmentation from development, leading to calls for demographic and genetic management. To address urgent conservation genomic concerns, we used double-digest restriction-site associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing to analyze 16,285 genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 401 broadly sampled pumas. Our analyses indicated support for 4–10 geographically nested, broad- to fine-scale genetic clusters. At the broadest scale, the 4 genetic clusters had high genetic diversity and exhibited low linkage disequilibrium, indicating pumas have retained statewide genomic diversity. However, multiple lines of evidence indicated substructure, including 10 fine-scale genetic clusters, some of which exhibited allelic fixation and linkage disequilibrium. Fragmented populations along the Southern Coast and Central Coast had particularly low genetic diversity and strong linkage disequilibrium, indicating genetic drift and close inbreeding. Our results demonstrate that genetically at-risk populations are typically nested within a broader-scale group of interconnected populations that collectively retains high genetic diversity and heterogeneous fixations. Thus, extant variation at the broader scale has potential to restore diversity to local populations if management actions can enhance vital gene flow and recombine locally sequestered genetic diversity. These state- and genome-wide results are critically important for science-based conservation and management practices. Our broad- and fine-scale population genomic analysis highlights the information that can be gained from population genomic studies aiming to provide guidance for fragmented population conservation management.

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Using Mountain Lion Habitat Selection in Management

Cited by 26 publications

References 49 publications

Mapping and modeling human-black bear interactions in the Catskills region of New York using resource selection probability functions

Mapping and modeling human-black bear interactions in the Catskills region of New York using resource selection probability functions

Multi‐population puma connectivity could restore genomic diversity to at‐risk coastal populations in California

Broad-scale puma connectivity could restore genomic diversity to fine-scale coastal populations

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