Winter Habitat Selection by Canada Lynx in Maine: Prey Abundance or Accessibility?

Abstract

We related winter habitat selection by Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), relative abundance of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus), and understory stem densities to evaluate whether lynx select stands with the greatest snowshoe hare densities or the greatest prey accessibility. Lynx (3 F, 3 M) selected tall (4.4‐7.3 m) regenerating clear‐cuts (11‐26 yr postharvest) and established partially harvested stands (11‐21 yr postharvest) and selected against short (3.4‐4.3 m) regenerating clear‐cuts, recent partially harvested stands (1‐10 yr), mature second‐growth stands (>40 yr), and roads and their edges (30 m on either side of roads). Lynx selected stands that provided intermediate to high hare density and intermediate cover for hares (i.e., prey access) but exhibited lower relative preference for stand types with highest hare densities where coniferous saplings exceeded 14,000 stems/ha.

Separating spatial search and efficiency rates as components of predation risk

“…McPhee et al [9] showed that prey density was less predictive of predator efficiency than other spatial factors, suggesting that the effect of prey density may manifest more in predator searching behaviour than efficiency. In other systems, predator searching behaviour has been linked to prey density [35], prey vulnerability [36,37] and an interaction of both [38]. Thus, prey vulnerability and prey density are likely to mediate one or both of the relationships between spatial heterogeneity and components of predation found here.…”

Mesocarnivores respond to fine-grain habitat structure in a mosaic landscape comprised by commercial forest plantations in southern Chile

“…(2) Complexity of habitat structure was included as complex vegetation structure provides suitable microhabitat conditions for prey, representing better foraging conditions for mesocarnivores (e.g., Fuller et al, 2007;Lantschner et al, 2011), particularly in forest plantations (Moreira-Arce et al, 2015b). Complexity of habitat structure was expressed as a structural diversity index (SDI) that incorporated vertical and horizontal variation in vegetation (van Ewijk et al, 2011):…”

Designing fecal pellet surveys for snowshoe hares

“…This species is an important prey species for many forest carnivores, including Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), which is listed as threatened in the contiguous US under the Endangered Species Act (USFWS, 2000). Previous studies have used counts of fecal pellets to examine long-term population dynamics at individual sites (Malloy, 2000;Krebs et al, 2001), use of riparian set-asides in harvested areas (Darveau et al, 1998), relative abundance in different stand types in landscapes affected by various types of harvest (Newbury and Simon, 2005;Potvin et al, 2005;Fuller et al, 2007), and the impacts of precommercial thinning on population size (Sullivan et al, 2002;Ausband and Baty, 2005;Griffin and Mills, 2007;Homyack et al, 2007). Increasingly, forest managers in federal and state agencies are also using pellet counts as a way to determine which forest stands support enough hares to be considered as lynx foraging habitat, as that designation triggers particular management strategies.…”