10.5061/DRYAD.QB8M4
Green, David S.
Oregon State University
Matthews, Sean M.
Oregon State University
Swiers, Robert C.
North Carolina State University
Callas, Richard L.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Yaeger, J. Scott
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Farber, Stuart L.
US Forest Service
Schwartz, Michael K.
US Forest Service
Powell, Roger A.
North Carolina State University
Data from: Dynamic occupancy modeling reveals a hierarchy of competition
among fishers, grey foxes, and ringtails
Dryad
dataset
2018
Pekania pennanti
translocation
source community
spatial capture-recapture
Bassariscus astutus
Urocyon cinereoargenteus
dynamic occupancy model
Jolly-Seber
2018-12-01T00:00:00Z
2018-12-01T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12791
29304 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
1. Determining how species coexist is critical for understanding
functional diversity, niche partitioning and interspecific interactions.
Identifying the direct and indirect interactions among sympatric
carnivores that enable their coexistence are particularly important to
elucidate because they are integral for maintaining ecosystem function. 2.
We studied the effects of removing 9 fishers (Pekania pennanti) on their
population dynamics and used this perturbation to elucidate the
interspecific interactions among fishers, grey foxes (Urocyon
cinereoargenteus), and ringtails (Bassariscus astutus). Grey foxes
(family: Canidae) are likely to compete with fishers due to their similar
body sizes and dietary overlap, and ringtails (family: Procyonidae), like
fishers, are semi-arboreal species of conservation concern. We used
spatial capture-recapture to investigate fisher population numbers and
dynamic occupancy models that incorporated interspecific interactions to
investigate the effects members of these species had on the colonization
and persistence of each other’s site occupancy. 3. The fisher population
showed no change in density for up to three years following the removals
of fishers for translocations. In contrast, fisher site occupancy
decreased in the years immediately following the translocations. During
this same time period, site occupancy by grey foxes increased and remained
elevated through the end of the study. 4. We found a complicated hierarchy
among fishers, foxes, and ringtails. Fishers affected grey fox site
persistence negatively but had a positive effect on their colonization.
Foxes had a positive effect on ringtail site colonization. Thus, fishers
were the dominant small carnivore where present and negatively affected
foxes directly and ringtails indirectly. 5. Coexistence among the small
carnivores we studied appears to reflect dynamic spatial partitioning.
Conservation and management efforts should investigate how intraguild
interactions may influence the recolonization of carnivores to previously
occupied landscapes.
Small carnivore competition4 data files required to replicate our
analyses, including: "GeneticSamples.csv",
"SiteLocations.csv", "SiteVisits.csv", and
"TrackPlates.csv". Data were collected from sites in northern
California and southern Oregon, USA.GreenEtAl_JAE.zip