Habitat associations in a recolonizing, low-density black bear population

被引:22
作者
Sollmann, Rahel [1 ]
Gardner, Beth [2 ]
Belant, Jerrold L. [3 ]
Wilton, Clay M. [3 ]
Beringer, Jeff [4 ]
机构
[1] Univ Calif Davis, Dept Wildlife Fish & Conservat Biol, 1088 Acad Surge,One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616 USA
[2] Univ Washington, Sch Environm & Forest Sci, Seattle, WA 98195 USA
[3] Mississippi State Univ, Forest & Wildlife Res Ctr, Carnivore Ecol Lab, Box 9690, Mississippi State, MS 39762 USA
[4] Missouri Dept Conservat, 3500 E Gans Rd, Columbia, MO 65202 USA
来源
ECOSPHERE | 2016年 / 7卷 / 08期
关键词
carnivores; discriminant function analysis; Missouri; recovering populations; resource selection; space usage; spatial capture-recapture; Ursus americanus; INTERIOR HIGHLANDS; RESOURCE SELECTION; URSUS-AMERICANUS; PREDATION RISK; INFORMATION; AVAILABILITY; CARNIVORES; INDICATOR; RESPONSES; USA;
D O I
10.1002/ecs2.1406
中图分类号
Q14 [生态学(生物生态学)];
学科分类号
071012 ; 0713 ;
摘要
American black bears are closely associated with forest habitat. They were nearly extirpated from the Central Interior Highlands, United States, in the early twentieth century, but have recolonized this part of the range since the 1960s. Due to lower population densities (as a result of recent recolonization), we hypothesized that bears in this region would show strong associations with forest habitat at both the home range and landscape scale. To test this, we analyzed hair snare and GPS telemetry data from five sampling grids with a combined spatial capture-recapture and resource selection function model to investigate individual space use within home ranges and landscape scale variation in density of black bears in the southern Missouri part of the Interior Highlands. We performed a linear discriminant analysis to identify habitat correlates of black bear density. We found that at the home range level, bears selected for more forested habitat and steeper slopes. Black bear density varied among sampling grids from 0.842 to 10.248 individuals/100 km(2) which is at the low end of the spectrum of reported black bear densities. There were no clear habitat correlates for among-grid variation in density, but in the three higher-density grids, density declined with increasing forest cover and increasing distance from human settlements. This suggests that the bear populations benefited from more heterogeneous habitat and that rural settlements may represent food resources. Exploiting these anthropogenic resources could be facilitated by the fact that bears in our study were not hunted and were viewed as a novelty rather than a nuisance, which may lead to low perceived risk from anthropogenic sources. Our results highlight the need to interpret habitat associations of American black bears not only at local scales but also in the landscape context.
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页数:11
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