Habitat Associations of Small Mammals at Two Spatial Scales in the Northern Sierra Nevada

Coppeto, Stephanie A.; Kelt, Douglas A.; Vuren, Dirk H. Van; Wilson, James A.; Bigelow, Seth W.

doi:10.1644/05-mamm-a-086r1.1

Cited by 74 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Multiscale studies provide critical information for supporting conservation actions, because they allow the identification of scale-specific variables that limit the persistence of populations, and they support the development of effective management options (Boyd et al 2008). For example, the occurrence of small mammals and birds is in some cases better predicted by landscape than by microhabitat variables (Saab 1999, Coppeto et al 2006. However, species re sponses may differ within a taxonomic group.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiscale patterns of habitat and space use by the pacarana Dinomys branickii: factors limiting its distribution and abundance

Saavedra-Rodríguez¹,

Kattan²,

Osbahr³

et al. 2012

Endang. Species. Res.

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The factors that influence habitat and space use by animals, and therefore their distribution and abundance, vary with spatial scale. The pacarana Dinomys branickii is a large rodent of the tropical Andes threatened by illegal hunting and habitat loss. We identified variables related to pacarana habitat use at 4 spatial scales in the Colombian Andes: landscape (3.14 km 2 circles), forest patch, foraging area, and den. At the landscape scale, pacaranas used areas with 20 to 95% forest cover that were not different from randomly sampled sites. At the forest fragment scale, used patches (mean = 12 ha) were larger than unused patches, but independent of distance to continuous forest. At the foraging area scale, habitat use was related to the presence of rocky caves used as dens and was unrelated to forest structure. At the den scale, pacaranas used deep caves (> 4 m) in sloping rocky outcrops with > 40% exposed rock (in 100 m 2 patches). Pacarana groups (4 to 5 individuals) had a mean home range of 2.45 ha around caves. We estimated a population density of 9.9 and 5.5 groups km −2 based on sign clusters (footprints, latrines, and foraging areas) and dens, respectively. Pacaranas fed on a variety of plant families found in primary and secondary forest and disturbed areas near streams. Our results indicate that pacaranas can survive in forest fragments, and the main factor limiting their distribution and abundance is the availability of adequate dens. Conservation of pacarana populations in rural landscapes may be helped by protecting a network of forest patches connected by riparian vegetation, but these populations would be vulnerable to illegal hunting.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiscale patterns of habitat and space use by the pacarana Dinomys branickii: factors limiting its distribution and abundance

Saavedra-Rodríguez¹,

Kattan²,

Osbahr³

et al. 2012

Endang. Species. Res.

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“…This seems unlikely, because the parameters we included are typical habitat and microhabitat features measured by many other authors. Additionally, other work in this region (e.g., Coppeto et al 2006;Innes et al 2007;Smith 2009) has documented the importance of some of these features to small mammal species here. An alternative to this is that although some of these species do in fact exhibit habitat preferences, most areas in this forest provide these features in sufficient abundance to be acceptable for many of these species-from the perspective of a small mammal PNF is more homogeneous than we initially believed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…The lack of compelling responses by small mammals to current forest structure in PNF suggests that further heterogeneity may be needed. Because of their role as key prey species (N. fuscipes and G. sabrinus) or as reservoirs for disease (P. maniculatus) we have contributed previously to the spatial ecology and habitat associations of these and other species (Coppeto et al 2006;Innes et al 2007;Smith et al 2011). We believe that further work should be developed to assess habitat requirements of specialist species in this region, and to evaluate the potential importance of mesic habitats such as riparian corridors (Cockle and Richardson 2003), meadows, and patchy vegetation types such as aspen (Populus tremuloides) stands (Oaten and Larsen 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Coppeto et al (2006) reported on mammal assemblages and habitat relations across all habitat types on the original 18 plots; here we focus on data collected over 8 years on the 12 plots in white fir habitat. These plots were established with the objective of evaluating small mammal responses to experimental canopy thinning, and were placed in 3 blocks established in structurally similar forest with approximately 70% canopy cover (Bigelow et al 2011).…”

Section: Long-term Plotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aspen Stands as Small Mammal “Hotspots” Within Dry Forest Ecosystems of British Columbia

Oaten

Larsen

2008

Northwest Science

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“…Although there is presumably not a single 'best' spatial scale at which to associate species and their habitats for all species or ecological conditions, it is possible to reveal relevant ecological associations when the scale of analysis approaches the operational scale of the process of interest. Studies often use expert knowledge to set the scale of analysis, or in some cases use expert-informed designs to collect data at 'fine-' versus 'large-' spatial scales to compare their relative explanatory power (e.g., Saab 1999;Coppeto et al 2006;Cunningham et al 2014). Unfortunately, information regarding the ecological processes shaping the distribution or abundance of a species is often lacking, let alone the spatial scale at which these processes may act.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bayesian method for assessing multi-scale species-habitat relationships

2017

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Context Scientists face several theoretical and methodological challenges in appropriately describing fundamental wildlife-habitat relationships in models. The spatial scales of habitat relationships are often unknown, and are expected to follow a multi-scale hierarchy. Typical frequentist or information theoretic approaches often suffer under collinearity in multiscale studies, fail to converge when models are complex or represent an intractable computational burden when candidate model sets are large. Objectives Our objective was to implement an automated, Bayesian method for inference on the spatial scales of habitat variables that best predict animal abundance. Methods We introduce Bayesian latent indicator scale selection (BLISS), a Bayesian method to select spatial scales of predictors using latent scale indicator variables that are estimated with reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. BLISS does not suffer from collinearity, and substantially reduces computation time of studies. We present a simulation study to validate our method and apply our method to a case-study of land cover predictors for ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) abundance in Nebraska, USA. Results Our method returns accurate descriptions of the explanatory power of multiple spatial scales, and unbiased and precise parameter estimates under commonly encountered data limitations including spatial scale autocorrelation, effect size, and sample size. BLISS outperforms commonly used model selection methods including stepwise and AIC, and reduces runtime by 90%. Conclusions Given the pervasiveness of scale-dependency in ecology, and the implications of mismatches between the scales of analyses and ecological processes, identifying the spatial scales over which species are integrating habitat information is an important step in understanding species-habitat relationships. BLISS is a widely applicable method for identifying important spatial scales, propagating scale uncertainty, and testing hypotheses of scaling relationships.

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Habitat Associations of Small Mammals at Two Spatial Scales in the Northern Sierra Nevada

Cited by 74 publications

References 45 publications

Multiscale patterns of habitat and space use by the pacarana Dinomys branickii: factors limiting its distribution and abundance

Multiscale patterns of habitat and space use by the pacarana Dinomys branickii: factors limiting its distribution and abundance

Aspen Stands as Small Mammal “Hotspots” Within Dry Forest Ecosystems of British Columbia

A Bayesian method for assessing multi-scale species-habitat relationships

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